Innamorata

A Watteau-like representation of a pleasing French scene; the pet of the petticoats of Montreuil taking leave of his innamoratas.

His anxiety respecting his innamorata at last induced him to risk the voyage.

In Mendoza, San Luis, Santiago, Buenos Ayres, and all other cities in the provinces of Rio de la Plata, in Chili, and in Peru, whenever a young dandy, calling upon his innamorata, is informed that she is “en casa,” that is at home, he dismounts, extracts from his waistcoat pocket a beautiful pair of slight hobbles (weighing only two ounces), which by two silver buttons he affixes to the fetlocks of his high-bred horse, who, swishing with his long tail the innumerable flies that assail him, and looking at every animal that canters by him, stands stock still, until within the house all the compliments of the season have been paid, and all the songs to the guitar exhausted.

But most famous of all his innamoratas was Gabrielle d’Estrées, afterwards Duchesse de Beaufort, whom her lover has immortalised in the song commencing “Charmante Gabrielle.”

[…] in fact, they provoked such universal admiration, that I should advise any young brother sportsman, who possesses an ardent attachment for a lady fair, in whose superlative graces he wishes to bask and breathe out existence, not to forget to provide himself with an abundant supply of these lovely skins as gifts for his innamorata, for failure after such a donation must be his fault, and his only.

His innamoratas were the freckled beauties who milked cows and hoed potatoes; but his passionate imagination attired them with the most wonderful graces.

But in the best of these pieces, in which the author expresses his love for nature at least as strongly as his passion for his innamorata, he rises to a level sufficiently high to entitle him to rank with the great lyrists of his time.

What was thought about Harry Waters and his innamorata is of no moment, for amongst the wiseacres of San Justo there was no prophet or the son of a prophet.