or rather, perhaps, that chronic conflict of inclination between
himself and Mrs. Sterne, of which he speaks with such a tell-tale
affectation of philosophy. "My wife," he writes in January, "returns
to Toulouse, and proposes to spend the summer at Bagnères. I, on the
contrary, go to visit my wife the church in Yorkshire. We all live the
longer, at least the happier, for having things our own way. This is
my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the best of maxims, but I maintain
'tis not the worst." It was natural enough that Sterne, at any rate,
should wish to turn his back on Montpellier. Again had the unlucky
invalid been attacked by a dangerous illness; the "sharp air" of the
place disagreed with him, and his physicians, after having him under
their hands more than a month, informed him coolly that if he stayed
any longer in Montpellier it would be fatal to him. How soon after
that somewhat late warning he took his departure there is no record
to show; but it is not till the middle of May that we find him writing
from Paris to his daughter. And since he there announces his intention
of leaving for England in a few days, it is a probable conjecture that
he had arrived at the French capital some fortnight or so before.

His short stay in Paris was marked by two incidents--trifling in
themselves, but too characteristic of the man to be omitted. Lord
Hertford, the British Ambassador, had just taken a magnificent hotel
in Paris, and Sterne was asked to preach the first sermon in its
chapel. The message was brought him, he writes, "when I was playing
a sober game of whist with Mr. Thornhill; and whether I was called
abruptly from my afternoon amusement to prepare myself for the
business on the next day, or from what other cause, I do not pretend
to determine; but that unlucky kind of fit seized me which you know
I am never able to resist, and a very unlucky text did come into my
head." The text referred to was 2 Kings XX. 15--Hezekiah's admission