The Conductor, as he is called, of Roads and Bridges was my
principal companion. He was generally intelligent, and could have
spoken more or less falsetto on any of the trite topics; but it was
his specially to have a generous taste in eating. This was what
was most indigenous in the man; it was here he was an artist; and I
found in his company what I had long suspected, that enthusiasm and
special knowledge are the great social qualities, and what they are
about, whether white sauce or Shakespeare's plays, an altogether
secondary question.
I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, and
grew to believe myself an expert in the business. I thought I
could make an entry in a stone-breaker's time-book, or order manure
off the wayside with any living engineer in France. Gondet was one
of the places we visited together; and Laussonne, where I met the
apothecary's father, was another. There, at Laussonne, George Sand
spent a day while she was gathering materials for the Marquis de
Villemer; and I have spoken with an old man, who was then a child
running about the inn kitchen, and who still remembers her with a
sort of reverence. It appears that he spoke French imperfectly;
for this reason George Sand chose him for companion, and whenever
he let slip a broad and picturesque phrase in patois, she would
make him repeat it again and again till it was graven in her
memory.
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