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these words come under her notice, let me assure her that we bear no ill-will, that she will always 
be welcome when she learns her lesson: that love is the only principle which makes life tolerable. 
I gladly leave this wretched episode. The Ape and I left Cefalu for Paris early in February and took 
up, as usual, our abode with our friends Monsieur and Madame Bourcier, 50 rue Vavin, a few doors 
below the Boulevard Montparnasse near the Rotonde. I cannot let pass this occasion of expressing 
my affection and gratitude which these good folks have won. Their hotel has been my headquarters 
in Paris for over fifteen years and from the very beginning they treated me more like a son than a 
stranger. When people talk against the French and complain of the difficulty of getting on with 
them, I smile only a little at their stupidity, and all the rest at the memory of the kindness which I 
have received from the Bourciers.  
Nor is the case unique. I confess that now and again, I have met French people without real 
politeness or real good feeling. I will add that the wealthy and alleged aristocratic classes are 
sprinkled much too thinly with individuals for whom I have any use. I find them selfish and boring. 
The first is the cause of the second, for the secret is that they lack faith in life; seeking self they 
have found an inane nullity, and being bored with themselves they naturally bore other people. But 
French artists, the professional classes and the much abused bourgeois are almost always delightful. 
What's more, you can trust them to do you a good turn when opportunity occurs. As to the peasant 
in the provinces, I find La Terre very one-sided. No doubt thrift often becomes avarice and 
meanness, and contact with the soil a hardening and dehumanizing influence. But if you know how 
to take them the right way, you will find them a pretty good sort. 
I have a theory that English people find the French unsympathetic for one fundamental reason. Our 
neighbours and allies, from the President to the most primitive toiler, possess one quality which I 
have analysed at length elsewhere. They insist on refusing to fool themselves. They see no sense in 
pretending things are pretty when they are not. They think it stupid to dope themselves and an 
insult to the intelligence of others to kiss the blarney stone. The English mind is accordingly 
shocked. It is so fixed in the point of politeness to refuse reality. 
For the first time in my life, Paris disappointed me. All the old enchantments had somehow 
vanished. I felt that my work lay elsewhere. London called to me. It was quite unreasonable. I had 
no motive for going. I had no means to go. Uneasy and undecided I got through the days as best I 
could. 
{884} 
I decided to seek a solitude favourable for concentration at Hardelot, near Boulogne, in a delightful 
old inn where I had stayed before. The Ape of Thoth was in London. I wired her to meet me at 
Boulogne. So far there was no hitch in the proceedings. She met me at the train. 
{885} 
92 
For some time past the City of London had amused itself by wondering mildly what could have 
happened to a dear old friend of theirs named Bevan. He was the head of several important 
concerns which, in fact, felt such dependence upon his gracious and intelligent guidance that they 
could hardly get on without him, especially as he had absent-mindedly packed in his portmanteau 
all their available assets. His absence aroused such anxiety and his speedy return was so desirable, 
that his friends had succeeded in interesting even Scotland Yard in the matter. Sympathetic friends 
all over Europe joined the rescue party and the Daily Mail lent its aid by publishing a photograph of 
the missing millionaire every day, week after week, and offered a prize of twenty-five thousand 
francs for information calculated to reassure the bereaved ones. 
Excuse the digression. Both I and the Ape of Thoth strolled across the station to the Hotel Christol é 
Christol, proposing to dine and sleep, and go on to Hardelot in the morning. Tired by the journey we 
lay down for an hour and then came down to dinner. The restaurant opens out of the hall; to reach