LETTER XXXII. Rica to * **.

THE other day I went to see a house where a mean provision is made for about three hundred persons. I had soon done, for the church and the buildings are not worth regarding. The inhabitants of this house are very cheerful, many of them play together at cards, or at other games that I do not understand. As I was coming away, one of these men was going out also, and hearing me enquire the way to Murais, which is the most extreme quarter of all Paris, “I am going there, said he to me, and I will conduct you there; follow me.” He guided me admirably, cleared me from crouds, and saved me very dextrously from coaches and carriages. Our walk was pretty near at an end when my curiosity prompted me: “My good friend, said I to

him, may I not know who you are?” “I am, Sir, replied he, a blindman.” “How? said I to him, are you blind? And why did you not desire the honest man you was playing at cards with to conduct us?” “He is blind also, replied he; there hath been for this four hundred years, three hundred blind persons in the house where you met with me; but I must leave you, there is the street you asked for; I must join the crowd to go into that church, where I dare swear I shall be a greater obstruction to others than they to me.”

Paris, the 17th of the moon Chalval,
1712.