“It is a vile place this village of Plessis les Tours that can baffle both you and me. It is a place famous in history; and, moreover, is, as your Gazetteer assures us, a village of 1000 inhabitants, yet I have not found it in any map, provincial or general, which I have consulted. I think something must be found in Malte Brun’s Geographical Works. I have also suggested to Mr Cadell that Wraxall’s History of France, or his Travels, may probably help us. In the mean time I am getting on; and instead of description holding the place of sense, I must try to make such sense as I can find hold the place of description.
“I know Hawkwood’s story;* he was originally, I believe, a tailor in London, and became a noted leader of Condottieri in Italy.
“I shall be obliged to Mr David† to get from the
* Hawkwood from whose adventures Constable had thought the author of Quentin Durward might take some hints—began life as apprentice to a London tailor. But, as Fuller says, “he soon turned his needle into a sword, and his thimble into a shield,” and raised himself to knighthood in the service of Edward III. After accumulating great wealth and fame in the predatory wars of Italy, he died in 1393, at Florence, where his funeral was celebrated with magnificence amidst the general lamentations of the people.—See “The Honourable Prentice, or the Life and Death of Sir John Hawkwood,” &c. London: 4to. 1615. † Mr David Constable, eldest son of the great bookseller, had been called to the bar at Edinburgh. |
| QUENTIN DURWARD. | 255 |
