Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/152

again. "Boo, poo, bon—no—Boo-jo—lais—Beaujolais, I think it is. No, Pou—jo—lat; it is Poujolat."—"Then," interrupted I, "I guess who they are: there was a Monsieur Poujolat, who came into the Levant six or seven years ago, to make researches respecting the crusades: I saw him at Cyprus; he and Monsieur Michaud were together. They were considered men of talent, and I believe were contributors to some Paris newspaper during Charles the Tenth’s time. They had published already some volumes of their travels before I left Europe, and the greatest part of the ground was travelled over, as I surmise, in the saloons of their consuls, during the long evenings when they were shut in by the plague of 1831 and 1832; for they speak of many places where they could hardly have gone. But this is not unusual," I added, "with some writers; for Monsieur Chaboçeau, a French doctor at Damascus, told me, in 1813, when I was staying in his house, that Monsieur de Volney never went to Palmyra, although he leads one to suppose he had been there; for, owing to a great fall of snow just at the period when he projected that journey, he was compelled to relinquish the attempt. Monsieur Chaboçeau, an octogenarian, had known him, and entertained him as his guest in his house; and he answered me, when I reiterated the question, that Volney never saw Palmyra."