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Passage Illustrated: The Decorated Veteran selling pastries on the curb

La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de St. Louis selling pâtés. — It is impossible, La Fleur, said I. — La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he said, tied to his buttonhole — and had looked into the basket and seen the pâtés which the Chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.

Such a reverse in man’s life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise: — the more I look’d at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain. — I got out of the remise, and went towards him.

He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket of little pâtés was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of propretéand neatness throughout, that one might have bought his pâtés of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.

He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without solicitation.

He was about forty-eight; — of a sedate look, something approaching to gravity. I did not wonder. — I went up rather to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pâtés into my hand, — I begg’d he would explain the appearance which affected me.

He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained a company and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those of some other regiments, left without any provision, he found himself in a wide world without friends, without a livre, — and indeed, said he, without anything but this, — (pointing, as he said it, to his croix). — The poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem too. ["Le Patissier. Versailles," pp. 112-13]

Commentary

Jacques and Fussell have singled out for one of the 1841 edition's thirty-seven larger engravings the impoverished veteran of France's wars who has, by ill-chance, been reduced to selling his wife's pastries on the curb in the Paris suburb of Versailles, not far from the very seat of government. Mr. Yorick's valet, La Fleur, can hardly credit his eyes when he spots the the former officer wearing a tradesman's linen apron but still (if one can credit the 1841 illustration) wearing his military uniform. In Tony Johannot's 1857 re-interpretation of the portrait, the Chevalier of St. Louis conspicuously wears his military honour, with which even poverty has not compelled him to part. The 1841 edition's illustrators provide little or no visual context for the scene, whereas Johannot has given us considerable background detail: La Fleur looks on, as does the driver of Yorick's hired carriage. An English reader of either the eighteenth or nineteenth century might not have been fully aware of the irony of a recipient of the kingdom's highest military honour having to hawk his wife's confections: "The Order of St. Louis was established by Louis XIV in 1693 to honour those who had performed exceptional military service. The highest of the three orders was that of Chevalier (Knight)" (Turner, n. 1, p. 132).

A veteran of France's imperial and dynastic wars, the old officer had actually spent his inheritance to acquire command of a regiment during the War of Austrian Succession (174-48), but then found himself without employment or pension when the government reformed the army's regiments after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The story, like that of the The Marquis D'E— that follows, ends happily and in true sentimental vein as the vendor's story, having reached the King, results in his being able to give up the pastry business after he receives a substantial pension of fifteen hundred livres per annum — since at the time a livre was worth roughly ten English pennies and since twenty sous equalled a livre, this pension would amount to 71 guineas in eighteenth-century English currency, or 75 pounds (roughly $13,000 US dollars in buying power in today's market). Although this hardly constitutes a windfall fortune, the King's conferring the pension, like the Marquis' recovering his family fortunes and noble status, constitutes a recovery and a happy ending, not just in materialistic terms but in as restitution of personal dignity and social standing. Although the figure whom Jacques and Fussell present lacks animation, their portrait communicates the Chevalier's ironic situation in his military bearing; indeed, the portrait suggests that he is standing at attention beside the basket.

Relevant illustration from the 1841 edition

Above: The 1857 Johannot illustration of Yorick's study of the decorated military veteran vending pastries, The Poor Chevalier de St. Louis, in "Le Patissier. Versailles"

Bibliography

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.

Turner, Katherine. "Notes." Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768). Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2010.

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Last modified 13 September 2018