"'De par le Roi.' ''Tis a pithy prolegomenon,' quoth I, and so
read on.... 'By all which it appears,' quoth I, having read it over
a little too rapidly, 'that if a man sets out in a post-chaise for Paris,
he must go on travelling in one all the days of his life, or pay for it.'

"'Excuse me,' said the commissary, 'the spirit of the ordinance is
this, that if you set out with an intention of running post from Paris
to Avignon, &c., you shall not change that intention or mode of
travelling without first satisfying the fermiers for two posts further
than the place you repent at; and 'tis founded,' continued he, 'upon
this, that the revenues are not to fall short through your fickleness.'

"'O, by heavens!' cried I, 'if fickleness is taxable in France, we
have nothing to do but to make the best peace we can.'

"And so the peace was made."


And the volume ends with the dance of villagers on "the road between
Nismes and Lunel, where is the best Muscatto wine in all France"--that
charming little idyll which won the unwilling admiration of the least
friendly of Sterne's critics.[1]

With the close of this volume the shadowy Tristram disappears
altogether from the scene; and even the clearly-sketched figures of
Mr. and Mrs. Shandy recede somewhat into the background. The courtship
of my Uncle Toby forms the whole _motif_ and indeed almost the entire
substance, of the next volume. Of this famous episode in the novel a
great deal has been said and written, and much of the praise