Characters of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy:
Reverend Mr. Yorick is the main character of the novel. He appears to be an alter ego of Laurence Sterne himself. He is the sentimental traveler and narrator of the novel. He is quick to judge other people by their physical appearances at the beginning of his journey, but later regrets the assumptions he makes. Yorick is very interested in women and engages in many flirtations in the course of his travels. Father Lorenzo is a poor monk whom Yorick encounters and at first, refuses to assist. Father Lorenzo eventually becomes a longtime acquaintance of Yorick. Monsieur Dessein is the owner of the hotel in Calais where Yorick stays; he helps Yorick secure a carriage. La Fleur is a handsome, faithful, affectionate, simple-of-soul young man whom Yorick takes on as a servant. Count de B. is a man who mistakes Yorick for a character from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare and gives Yorick a passport in Versailles. Maria is a young widowed woman who recently lost her husband. Yorick knows her from the past and meets to console her. Madame de L is a beautiful and sorrowful woman Yorick meets at the door of the Remise, where he is to pick out a chaise. He receives a letter from her and sends back a love letter written by someone else, but the two do not cross paths again. Madam de R is a woman to whom Yorick is supposed to deliver a letter in Paris. The Lady is a thirty-year-old woman who is traveling with her fille de chambre and who has to sleep in a bed next to Yorick's bed. She is very uncomfortable with this arrangement, especially when Yorick speaks after he is requested not to. The fille de chambre is a young woman who works for Madame de R. Yorick initially sees her in a bookshop and compliments her on her virtue. The two later engage in a flirtatious interlude, with Yorick touching her satin purse and helping her with her broken shoe. Their flirtation gets Yorick kicked out of his hotel room. The grisset is a beautiful shopkeeper whom Yorick asks for directions and flirts with at some length, even though she has a husband.
Summary of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy:
Reverend Yorick is an English priest who never visited France. One day, he suddenly feels an urge to compare France to Britain. Thus he packs lightly and sets sail the next day from Dover to Calais.
In Calais, a Franciscan monk begs Yorick for alms. Yorick cruelly rebuffs him. The monk leaves once Yorick chastises him for depending on the bread of “other people’s” labor. After the monk leaves, Yorick regrets his cruelty and resolves to let his trip teach him to be a better person. He meets with Monsieur Dessein, the owner of the tavern where Yorick stayed. Dessein also owns a carriage yard and offers to show him some carriages for Yorick’s travel. While walking to the carriage yard, Yorick finds himself caught alone with a young woman named Madame de L. He accidentally insults her, eventually deciding that the monk told her a bad story about him. The monk is nearby and he and Yorick exchange snuffboxes; Yorick is desperate to make amends for the non-existent insult.
Yorick waits for the employees of the carriage store. He sees Madame de L again and tries to strike up a conversation. His attempts fail but the hotel manager returns with the key to the store and begins to show Yorick the carriages. Yorick and Madame de L are shown in one carriage and then accidentally locked inside. They share a brief conversation before the woman is told that her brother has come to collect her. Yorick mentions that her brother’s arrival has spoiled a proposal he wanted to make her; she replies that she guesses what the proposal is and that if her brother had not arrived, she would have accepted. She then leaves. Yorick purchases a carriage and thinks about a writer named Smelfungus with whom he has a bitter rivalry.
Yorick rides to Montriul, where he hires a servant, a young man named La Fleur with no useful skills. Yorick and La Fleur travel on to Amiens, where Yorick sees Madame L riding by in her brother’s coach. Later, Madame L sends Yorick a letter asking him to deliver another letter to Madame de R in Paris and inviting him to visit her sometime in Brussels. Recalling that he has sworn faithfulness to Eliza back in England, Yorick vows not to visit Brussels without her. By a series of coincidences, La Fleur ends up running into Madame L, who asks him whether he has a letter from Yorick for her. La Fleur, embarrassed, runs back to Yorick and convinces him to copy a love letter La Fleur has on hand so that La Fleur can give something to Madame L. Unable to think up a letter of his own on the spot, Yorick goes along with La Fleur’s plan and copies the letter. Then he and La Fleur leave for Paris.
In Paris, Yorick meets a barber and has a new wig fitted. He then visits the opera, where he witnesses a French military officer intervene in a situation to help a dwarf. On the way home, he stops to buy a book and meets a woman who works as a chambermaid for Madame de R, the person to whom he is meant to deliver the letter. He takes the chambermaid to his hotel where He and the chambermaid end up sitting on the bed; helping her with a loose shoe strap, Yorick knocks her over and feels extreme sexual temptation, but he hustles her out of his room before anything happens.
Soon he discovers that the police are searching for him, as he does not have a passport. Yorick must travel to Versailles to obtain a passport. Yorick calls at the home of a French aristocrat but is told that the gentleman is not available. Yorick begins to travel back to Paris but he is struck by the idea to visit Count de B whom he heard about in the bookstore. The Count is allegedly a fan of William Shakespeare so Yorick hopes that his nationality and his literary knowledge will secure a meeting. The Count agrees to see Yorick and the two men talk about books. The Count delights in the fact that Yorick shares a name with a Shakespearean character and he promises to bring him a passport. The Count appears to believe that Yorick is some kind of jester but Yorick does not correct him. Yorick accepts the passport which describes him as a jester because he does not want to argue with the Count.
Over the course of the coming days, Yorick begins to befriend the upper classes in Paris. He is introduced to a string of aristocrats by the count but eventually grows weary with the schedule and decides to move on to Italy. While traveling to Italy, Yorick stops to meet Maria. She is a young girl whose story was told to him by a friend, Mr. Shandy. Yorick finds Maria in a state of mourning and senses a great tragedy in her life. Moved by her plight, he bids her farewell. He thinks that if it weren’t for his beloved Eliza, he would marry her. The memory of Maria stays with him on the road to Lyon. One night, they stop at a small house in the French countryside. Yorick eats dinner with the family and watches them dance in the evening. The next day, Yorick stops at an inn for the night, where the innkeeper demands that Yorick share his room with a lady from Piedmont and her maid. Embarrassed at having to share a room for the night, Yorick and the lady talk through a series of rules they will follow to make the experience as painless as possible. Among the rules is that Yorick will not speak after they have gone to bed except to say his prayers. After they go to bed, however, Yorick tosses and turns so miserably that he ends up shouting, “O my God!” The lady scolds him. While making excuses for his outburst, the maid quietly enters the room. Yorick throws out his arm in the dark catching hold of her...the novel stops here with an incomplete sentence.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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