An Englishman never dreams of entering into conversation without some previous knowledge upon the point which is the subject of discussion.

An Englishman never dreams of entering into conversation without some previous knowledge upon the point which is the subject of discussion. You will pass but few days in France before you will be convinced, that to a Frenchman this is not at all necessary. The moment he enters the room, or caffé, where a circle may happen to be conversing, he immediately takes part in the discussion—of whatever nature, or upon whatever subject that may be, is not of the most distant consequence to him. He strikes in with the utmost self-assurance and adroitness, maintains a prominent part in the conversation with the most perfect plausibility; and although, from his want of accurate information, he will rarely instruct, he seldom fails to amuse by the exuberance of his fancy, and the rapidity of his elocution. But take any one of his sentences to pieces, analyze it, strip it of its gaudy clothing and fanciful decorations, and you will be astonished what skeletons of bare, shallow, and spiritless ideas will frequently present themselves.

In England, it often happens, that a man who is perfectly master of the subject in discussion, from the effect of shyness or embarrassment, will convey his information with such an appearance of awkwardness and hesitation, as to create a temporary suspicion of dulness, or of incapacity. But upon further examination, the true and sterling value of his remarks is easily discernible. The same can very seldom be said of a Frenchman. His conversation, which delights at the moment, generally fades upon recollection. The information of the first is like a beautiful gem, whose real value is concealed by the encrustation with which it is covered; the other is a dazzling but sorry paste in a brilliant setting. [47]"Un Français," says M. de Stael, with great truth, "scait encore parler, lors meme il n'a point d'idees;" and the reason why a Frenchman can do so is, because ideas, which are the essential requisites in conversation to any other man, are not so to him. He is in possession of many substitutes, composed of a few of those set phrases and accommodating sentences which fit into any subject; and these, mixed up with appropriate nods, significant gestures, and above all, with the characteristic shrugging of the shoulders, are ever ready at hand when the tide of his ideas may happen to run shallow.

The perpetual cheerfulness of the French, under almost every situation, is well known, and has been repeatedly remarked. One great secret by which they contrive to preserve this invariable levity of mind, is probably this extraordinary talent of theirs for a particular kind of conversation. An Englishman, engaged in the business and duties of life, even at his hours of relaxation, is occupied in thinking upon them. In the midst of company he is often an insulated being; his mind, refusing intercourse with those around him, retires within itself. In this manner he inevitably becomes, even in his common hours, grave and serious, and if under misfortunes, perhaps melancholy and morose. A Frenchman is in every respect a different being: He cannot be grave or unhappy, because he never allows himself time to become so. His mind is perpetually busied with the affairs of the moment. If he is in company, he speaks, without introduction, to every gentleman in the room. Any thing, the most trivial, serves him for a hook on which to hang his story; and this generally lasts as long as he has breath to carry him on. He recounts to you, the first hour you meet with him, his whole individual history; diverges into anecdotes about his relations, pulls out his watch, and under the cover shews you the hair of his mistress, apostrophizes the curl—opens his pocket-book, insists upon your reading his letters to her, sings you the song which he composed when he was au desespoir at their parting, asks your opinion of it, then whirls off to a discussion on the nature of love; leaves that the next moment to philosophize upon friendship, compliments you, en passant, and claims you for his friend; hopes that the connection will be perpetual, and concludes by asking you to do him the honour of telling him your name. In this manner he is perpetually occupied; he has a part to act which renders serious thought unnecessary, and silence impossible. If he has been unfortunate, he recounts his distresses, and in doing so, forgets them. His mind never reposes for a moment upon itself; his secret is to keep it in perpetual motion, and, like a shuttlecock, to whip it back and forward with such rapidity, that although its feathers may have been ruffled, and its gilding effaced by many hard blows, yet neither you nor he have time to discover it.

Nothing can present a stronger contrast between the French and English character, and nothing evinces more clearly the superiority of the French in conversation, and the art of amusement, than the scenes which take place in the interior of a French diligence. They who go to France and travel in their own carriages are not aware of what they lose.—The interior of a French diligence, if you are tolerably fortunate in your company, is a perfect epitome of the French nation.—When you enter a public coach in England, it is certainly very seldom that, in the course of the few hours you may remain in it, you meet with an entertaining companion. Chance, indeed, may now and then throw a pleasant man in your way; but these are but thinly sown amongst those sour and silent gentlemen, who are your general associates, and who, now and then eyeing each other askance, look as if they could curse themselves for being thrown into such involuntary contiguity.

The scene in a French diligence is the most different from all this that can be conceived. Every thing there is life, and motion, and joy.—The coach generally holds from ten to twelve persons, and even then is sufficiently roomy.—The moment you enter you find yourself on terms of the most perfect familiarity with the whole set of your travelling companions. In an instant every tongue is at work, and every individual bent upon making themselves happy for the moment, and contributing to the happiness of their fellow travellers. Talking, joking, laughing, singing, reciting,—every enjoyment which is light and pleasurable is instantly adopted.—A gentleman takes a box from his pocket, opens it, and with a look of the most finished politeness, presents it, full of sweetmeats, to the different ladies in succession. One of these, in gratitude for this attention, proposes that which she well knows will be agreeable to the whole party, some species of round game like our cross-purposes, involving forfeits. The proposal is carried by acclamation,—the game is instantly begun, and every individual is included: Woe be now to the aristocracy of the interior! Old and young, honest and dishonest, respectable and disrespectable, all are involved in undistinguished confusion—but all are content to be so, and happy in the exchange. The game in the meantime proceeds, and the different forfeits become more numerous. The generality of these ensure, indeed, from their nature, a punctuality of performance. To kiss the handsomest woman in the party, to pay her a compliment in some extempore effusion, or to whisper a confidence (faire une confidence) in her ear—all these are hardly enjoined before they are happily accomplished. But others, which it would be difficult to particularize, are more amusing in their consequences, and less easy, in their execution.

The ludicrous effect of this scene is much heightened by its being often carried on in the dark, for night brings no cessation; and we have ourselves, in travelling in this manner in the diligence, engaged in many a game of forfeits where, it is not too much to say, that our play-fellows, of both sexes, were certainly nearer to the grave than the cradle, being somewhere between fifty and fourscore. The scenes which then take place, the undistinguished clamours of young and old, the audible salutes from every quarter, which point to the perpetual succession of the forfeits, altogether compose a spectacle, which to a stranger is the most unexpected and extraordinary that can be possibly imagined.

The conversation of a Frenchman, who possesses wit and information, is certainly superior to that of a clever man of any other country. It has a variety and playfulness, which, upon subjects of taste or fancy, or literature, delights and fascinates; but even their common conversation upon the most trivial matters is of a superior order, as far as amusement goes. However shallowly they may think upon a subject, they never fail to express themselves well. This is the case equally with those of both sexes. It is true, certainly, that in their subjects for conversation, they indulge in a wider range of selection; and in consequence, far more frequently without evincing the slightest scruple, overstep the bounds of decorum and delicacy. This is the inevitable effect of the peculiarity above noticed, that they must constantly converse; as their appetite for conversation is inordinate, their taste is necessarily less nice; provided they continue in motion, they are careless about the ground over which they travel. One unhappy consequence of this certainly is, that such carelessness extends to the women, even amongst the highest and best bred classes; and that these ideas of delicacy and tenderness, with which we are always accustomed to regard, in this country, the female mind, are shocked and grated against by the occurrence of scenes, the employment of expressions, and the mention of books which tend rather to disgust than to amuse, and which destroy in a moment that female fascination, which can never exist without that first and most material ingredient, modesty.

The science of conversation in France, is not, as with us, confined principally to the higher classes, but extends to the whole body of the people. The reason is, that the lower ranks in that country invariably imitate the manners, style of society, and mode of conversation used by the higher orders. The lower ranks in England converse, no doubt; but then their conversation, and the subjects upon which it is employed, is exactly fitted to the rank they hold in society.

In speaking of the literature of France, we shall have occasion to remark, that there is nothing in that country like an ancient or national poetry. This is perhaps not so much to be attributed to the excessive ignorance of the peasantry, as to the circumstance, that from the French peasantry invariably imitating the manners of the higher orders, there is no adaption of the manners of the labouring orders to the simple rank they fill in society. The innocence of rural life is thus lost. The shepherd, the peasant girl, the rustic labourer, whom you meet in France, are all in some measure artificial beings. They express themselves to any stranger they meet with ease and politeness, with a point and a vivacity which is certainly striking; but which is, of all things, the farthest removed from nature: and it is the consequence of this interchange which has taken place,—this imitation of the manners of the higher orders by the lower classes of the peasantry—that we shall in vain look for any thing in France like a simple national poetry. The truth, the simplicity, the nature, which ought to form it, are not to be found amongst any classes of the French people. The poetry of France, both ancient and modern, that of Ronsard and Marot, in earlier days; and that of Boileau, Racine, Corneille and Voltaire, in more modern times, bears the marks of having been formed in the court. If, for instance, in Scotland, the lower ranks, the labouring classes, like those of France, had transplanted the fictitious manners of the higher classes into the innocence of their cottage, or the sequestered solitude of their vallies—where, under such a state of things, could there ever have arisen such gifted spirits as Burns, or Ramsay, or Ferguson? and where should we have found, that truth, that beauty, that genuine nature, in the lives and manners of our peasantry, which has not only furnished such poets with some of their finest subjects, but has instructed these peasants themselves to pour out, in unpremeditated strains, those ancient and beautiful songs, which art and education could never have taught them; and which, in the progress of time, have formed that unrivalled national poetry, perhaps one of the brightest gems in the diadem of Scottish genius. But we must return to France.

The French have been always celebrated for their natural gaiety of character. One exception from this is material to be noticed. It must strike you the moment you look into the countenances of the soldiery, or examine the air and manner of the generality of the lower officers. A dark and gloomy expression, if not a suspicious, and often savage appearance, is their characteristic feature; and although this is disguised by occasional sallies of loud and intemperate mirth, these sallies are more like the desperate and reckless exertions of a troop of banditti, than the temperate and unpremeditated cheerfulness of a regular soldiery. Nor is this look confined entirely to the military. The habits of the whole nation are changed; but yet, with all this alteration, there remains enough of their characteristic gaiety to distinguish them from every other people in Europe.

Their excessive frivolity is perhaps even more remarkable than their gaiety; they have not sufficient steadiness for the uninterrupted avocations of graver life. In the midst of the most serious or deep discussion, a Frenchman will suddenly stop, and, with a look of perhaps more solemn importance than he bestowed upon the subject of debate, will adjust the ruffle of his brother savant, adding some observation on the propriety of adorning the exterior as well as the interior of science. [48]"Leur badinage," says Montesquieu, "naturellement fait pour las toilettes, semble etre provenu a former le caractere general de la nation. On badine au conseil, on badine a la tête d'une armee, on badine avec un ambassadeur."

The vanity of the whole nation, it is well known, is without all bounds; and although this is most apparent, perhaps, and less unequivocally shewn in every point connected with military affairs, it is yet confined to no one subject in particular, but embraces all—in arts, science, manufactures; in every thing, indeed, upon which the spirit and genius of a nation can be exercised, it is not too much to say, that they believe themselves superior to every other nation or country. Nay, what is very extraordinary, so much have they been accustomed to hear themselves talk in this exaggerated style; so natural to them have now become those expressions of arrogant superiority, that vanity has, in its adoption into the French character, and in the effects which it there produces, almost changed its nature.

In other countries—in our own, for instance, a very vain man is an object of ridicule, and generally of distrust. In France he is neither; on the contrary, there appears throughout the kingdom a kind of general agreement, a species of silent understood compact amongst them, that every thing asserted by one Frenchman to another, provided it is done with sufficient confidence and coolness, however individually vain, or absolutely incredible, ought to be fully and implicitly believed. It is this excessive idea which the French instil into each other of their own superiority, joined to the extreme ignorance of the great body of the people, which composes that prominent feature in their national character—their credulity—and which has long rendered them the easiest of all nations to be imposed upon by political artifice, and the submissive dupes of those travelling quacks and ingenious charlatans, who in this country are more than commonly successful in ruining the health and impoverishing the pockets of their devoted patients. An instance of this occurs to me, which happened to myself when residing in the south of France.

At one of the great fairs where I was present, there appeared upon an elevated stage, an elderly and serious-looking gentleman, dressed in a complete suit of solemn black, with a little child kneeling at his feet. "Messieurs," said he to the multitude, and bowing with the most perfect confidence and self-possession—[49]"Messieurs, c'est impossible de tromper des gens instruits comme vous. Je vais absolument couper la tête a cet-enfant: Mais avant de commencer, il faut que je vous fasse voir que je ne suis pas un charlatan. Eh bien, en attendant et pour un espece d'exorde: Qui est entre vous qui à le mal au dent?" "Moi," exclaimed instantly a sturdy looking peasant, opening his jaws, and disclosing a row of grinders which might have defied a shark. "Monsieur, (said the doctor, inspecting his gums), it is but too true. The disorders attending these small but inestimable members, the teeth, are invariably to be traced to a species of worm, and this the most obstinate, as well as the most fatal species in the vermicular tribe, which contrives to conceal itself at the root of the affected member. Gentlemen, we have all our respective antipathies; and it is by means of these that the most fatal and unaccountable effects are produced upon us. Worms, gentlemen, have also their prevailing antipathies. To subdue the animal, we have only to become acquainted with its disposition. The worm, Sir, at the bottom of your tooth, is of that faculty or tribe which abhors copper. It is the vermis halcomisicus, or copper-hating worm. Upon placing this penknife in the solution contained in this bottle," (continued he, holding up a small phial, which contained a green-coloured liquid), "it is, you see, immediately changed into copper." The patient then, at the doctor's request, approached. A female assistant stood between him and the crowd, and in a few minutes the tooth was delivered of a worm, which, from its size, might certainly have given the toothache to the Dragon of Wantley,

"Who swallow'd the Mayor, asleep in his chair,
And pick'd his teeth with the mace."

The peasant declared he felt no more pain, and the crowd eagerly pressed forward, (with the exception, we may believe, of the coppersmiths amongst the audience), and purchased the bottles containing this invaluable prescription. Before I had left the party, I discovered that the doctor, previously to the performing another trick, had borrowed from the crowd a gold piece of twenty francs, two pieces of five francs, a silver watch, and several smaller articles, nor did it appear they had the slightest suspicion that the learned doctor might have changed these articles as well as the penknife; and that although there were copper-hating worms, there might exist other kinds of human vermin, which might not reckon silver among their antipathies. This characteristic vanity, and the excessive credulity of the people, were strikingly exhibited in another ludicrous adventure of the same kind, which happened to us when I was resident at Aix.

We were alarmed one morning by a loud flourish of trumpets, almost immediately under our windows. On looking out, we beheld a kind of triumphal car, preceded by six avant couriers, clothed in scarlet and gold, mounted on uncommon fine horses, and with trumpets in their hands. In the car was placed a complete band of musicians, and it was, after a little interval in the procession, followed by a superb open carriage, the outside front of which was entirely covered with rich crimson velvet and gold lace. The most singular feature about the carriage was its shape, for there projected from it in front, a kind of large magazine, (covered up also with a cloth of velvet,) which was in its dimensions larger than the carriage itself. In this open carriage sat a plain looking, dark, fat man, reclining in an attitude of the most perfect ease, and genteelly dressed. The whole cortege halted, in the course of Aix, almost immediately below our house. I joined the audience which had collected around it. Of course all was on the tiptoe of expectation. There was a joyful buzz of satisfaction through the crowd, and endless were the conjectures formed by our own party at the window. At length, after a flourish of trumpets, the gentleman rose, and uncovering the large magazine, showed that it contained an almost endless assemblage of bottles, from the greatest to the smallest dimensions. He then, advancing gravely, addressed himself to the audience in these words: [50]"Messieurs, dans l'univers il n'ya qu'un soleil; dans le royaume de France il n'ya qu'un Roi; dans la medicine il n'ya que Charini." With this he placed his hand on his heart, bowed, and drew himself up with a look of the most glorious complacency. This exordium was received with the most rapturous applause by the crowd, who, from having often seen him in his progress through the kingdom, had known before that this was Charini himself, the celebrated itinerant worm doctor. "Gentlemen," he then proceeded, "it has been the noble object of my life to investigate the origin and causes of disease, and fortunate is it for the world that it has been so. Attend, then, to my discoveries: Worms are at the bottom of all disease,—they are the insidious, but prolific authors of human misery; they are born in the cradle with the infant; they descend into the grave with the aged. They begin, gentlemen, with life, but they do not cease with death. Behold, gentlemen," he continued, "the living and infallible proofs of my assertions," (pointing to the long rows of crystal bottles, filled with multitudes of every kind of these vermin, of the most odious figures, which were marshalled in horrible array on each side of him), "these, gentlemen, are the worms which have been, by my art, extracted from my patients; many of them are, as you see, invisible to the naked eye;" upon which he held up a small phial of pure water. "Not a single disease is there, and not a single part of the human body which has not its appropriate and peculiar worm. There are those whose habitation is in the head;—there are those which dwell only in the soles of the feet;—there are those whose favourite haunts are in the seat of digestion;—there are those (happy worms) which will consent to dwell only in the bosoms of the fair. Even love," said he, assuming an air of most complacent softness, and casting his eye tenderly over the female part of his audience, "even love is not an exception; it is occasioned by the subtlest species of worms; which insinuate themselves into the roots of the heart, and play in peristaltic gambols round the seat of our affections. Painters, gentlemen, have distinguished the God of Love by the doves with which he is accompanied. He ought, more correctly, to have been depicted riding upon that worm, to which he owes his triumphs. Behold," said he, holding up a phial in which there was enclosed a worm of a light colour, "behold the fatal love-worm, from which I have lately had the happiness to deliver an interesting female of Marseilles!" The crowd were enchanted, purchased his bottles in abundance; and I heard afterwards in Aix, that by this ingenious juggling, he had contrived to amass a fortune sufficient to purchase a large estate, and to maintain, as we had witnessed, a cavalcade worthy of an ambassador.

It is difficult to conceive any thing more ridiculous than the characteristic vanity and scientific expressions, which are employed by the French workmen. The wig-makers, tailors, barbers, all consider their several trades as in some measure allied to science, and themselves as the only beings who understand it.—This they generally contrive to communicate to you with an air of mysterious importance. "Monsieur," said a French barber to a friend of mine, an English sea captain who came in to be shaved; "you are an Englishman—sorry am I to inform you, but I do it with profound respect, that the science of shaving is altogether misunderstood in England. In their ignorance of its principles, they have neglected the great secret of our art. Sir," said he, coming closer up to him, and putting his hand to his own chin with an air of solemn communication, "I am credibly informed that in England they actually cut off the epiderme. Now, mon Dieu," continued he, turning up his eyes, and raising his soap-brush in an attitude of invocation, "who is there in France that will be ignorant that, in the destruction of this invaluable cuticle, the chin of the individual is tortured, and the first principles of our art degraded!"

I have already hinted at the ignorance of the French, as a component part of their national credulity. This ignorance, as far as our opportunities of observation extended, in travelling across France, appeared to be deep and general; not only amongst the lower orders, but, on many subjects, pervading also the higher classes of the people. The only subjects upon which Napoleon considered that any thing like attempts at a national education should be made, were those connected with military affairs; mathematics, and the principles of mechanical philosophy.—Schools for these were generally founded in all the principal towns in the kingdom; it was there the younger officers of the army received their military education, and there were many public seminaries for public education, in addition to the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, where the pupils were maintained and educated at the public expence. Every other branch of education, as tending to change the direction of the public mind, from military affairs into more pacific employments, was sedulously discouraged, and the consequence is seen, in that melancholy ignorance which is distinguishable in those generations of the French people which have sprung up since the revolution, and frequently even amongst the old nobility.[51] "Vous etes Ecossois?" said a French nobleman to me; 'Oui, Monsieur.' "Oh, que cela est drole." 'Et comment, Monsieur?' "C'est le pays de Napoleon. C'est un isle n'est ce pas?" 'Oh que non, Monsieur.' "Ma foi, je croyois qu'on l'appelloit l'isle de Corse." Whether, in the geographical confusion of this poor Marquis's brain, he had mistaken me for a Corsican, or actually believed that Napoleon was a Scotchman, is not very easy to determine.

"You are an Englishwoman?" said the wife of a counsellor to one of the ladies of our party: "and I have been at London."—"And how did you like the people?" "Oh, they are very charmant; bot I like better that other town near London,—Philadelphia."

It is well known, that formerly in France the order of the Jesuits had acquired so pre-eminent an interest, as to insinuate themselves into almost every civil branch of the political government; and that, more especially, by the seminaries which they established generally throughout the kingdom, they had created a system of national education, in many respects highly beneficial to the community. As to the effects produced by this system, under the Jesuits, on the literature of France, very different opinions certainly may be entertained; and that artificial, and in many respects unnatural, style of poetry which has arisen, and still continues in France, may be perhaps attributed, amongst other causes, to that excessive passion for classical learning which was so religiously instilled, whereever the influence of these seminaries of the Jesuits extended. The utter abolition of this order is well known, and the consequence is, that where there existed formerly a general passion for that species of literature, which they cultivated, and which consisted in an intimate and critical knowledge of the languages of antiquity, and a taste for classical learning, as the only object of their imitation, there remains now nothing but a deep and general ignorance upon every object unconnected with military affairs; an ignorance which is the more fatal in its consequences, because it is founded upon contempt. It is difficult to say which of these conditions is the worst, the former or the latter. Among physicians and lawyers, however, you meet with many individuals, who, having been educated probably in foreign countries, or under the old regime, preserve still a passion for that which is so generally despised.

In speaking of the education of the French people, it is impossible for any one who has at all mingled in French society, not to be particularly struck with what I before alluded to, the extreme ignorance and the limited education of the women, even amongst the higher orders. In a family of young ladies, you will but rarely meet with one who can accurately write her own language; and in general, in their cards of invitation, or in those letters of ceremony, which you will frequently receive, they will send you specimens of orthography, which, in their defiance of every established rule, are as amusing as Mrs Win. Jenkins' observations on that grave and useful gentleman, Mr Apias Corkus. Amongst the boys, any thing like a finished education was as little to be expected; the furor militaris had latterly, in the public schools, proceeded to such a pitch, as to defy every attempt towards giving them a general, or in any respect a finished education. They steadily revolted against any thing which induced them to believe that their parents intended them for a pacific profession. Go into a French toy-shop, and you immediately discern the unambiguous symptoms of the military mania. Every thing there which might encourage in the infant any predilections for the pacific pursuits of an agricultural or commercial country, is religiously banished, and their places supplied by an infinite variety of military toys:—platoons of gens-d'armerie, troops of artillery, tents, waggons, camp equipage, all are arranged in imitative array upon the counter. The infant of the grande nation becomes familiar, in his nurse's arms, with all the detail of the profession to which he is hereafter to belong; and when he opens his eyes for the first time, it is to rest them upon that terrible machinery of war, in the midst of which he is destined to close them for ever.

In every country, and in every age of the world, the great and leading effects of tyranny, and of military despotism, will be discovered to have been the same. Nothing could be a stronger corroboration of this remark, than that singular and unexpected parallel which was immediately observed by one of our party who had been long in India, between the policy adopted by Napoleon, and that followed by the Brahmins in the East. The Brahmins religiously prohibit travelling; and the sin of visiting foreign countries is particularized in their religious instructions. The free publication of the sentiments of travellers was never permitted under the late Emperor; and the severe regulations of the police made it extremely difficult for any Frenchman to travel. The object of both was the same, to prevent any mortifying and dangerous comparisons between the situation of their own, and the condition of foreign countries. The Brahmins made it a rule to check the progress of education, and to discourage the study of their shasters. As to these seminaries of education, unconnected with military subjects, Napoleon, if he did not dare actually to abolish them, at least threw over them the chilling influence of his imperial disapprobation; whilst, by that general inattention and impunity extended to vicious conduct, and the ridicule with which he regarded the clergy, he succeeded in rendering the scriptures contemptible. If, again, the condition of the French people was in many material respects analogous to the state of the Hindoos, the education of the women among them (the effect of the same causes operating in both countries), is completely Mussulman. Singing, dancing, and playing on the guitar, with a lighter species of ladies needle-work, forms the whole education of the French women; and this similarity of political treatment has produced a striking parallel even in the minuter parts of their national character.

It is disagreeable to dwell upon the darker parts of their characters; even amongst those whose dispositions, it must be acknowledged, if formed in a purer country, and encouraged to develope themselves in all their native beauty, would have done honour to any nation. Such is the laxity of moral principle, that a woman of unimpeached character is but rarely to be found; and I can speak from my own observation and experience, that examples of criminal conduct, being of frequent occurrence and generally expected, have ceased to be the objects of reprobation, and are no longer the subjects of enquiry. What is more extraordinary, and shews a deeper sort of depravity, is the circumstance that such instances are entirely confined to the married women. These are, in their conversation and conduct, indulged, by a kind of general consent, with every possible freedom, and, by the extraordinary state of manners, are presented by their husbands with every possible facility they could desire. A husband and wife in France have generally separate apartments, or rather inhabit separate wings of their hotel. The lady's bed-room is appropriated to herself alone. Its walls would be esteemed polluted by any intrusion of the husband. It is there that, in an elegant dishabille, she receives the visits of her friends. It is secure against observation, or interruption of any kind whatever. It, in short, is the sacred palladium of female indiscretion. Much of this mischievous licence may, I think, be easily traced to the treatment of the younger and unmarried women. They are confined under a superintendance which is as rigorous, as the licence allowed to their mothers is unbounded. All those affections which begin in their early years to develope themselves—all those dispositions which are natural to youth, the innocent love of pleasure, and the passion for the society of those of their own age, are violently restrained by a system of confinement. In their early years, they are either banished by their parents to the seclusion of a convent, or are confined in their own houses, under the care of a set of severe and withered old women, whom they term bonnes. The consequence is, that the sullen influence of these unkindly beings is reflected upon their pupils, and that when, after their marriage, they are permitted to come forth from their prison, and mingle in general society, all the sweetness and gentleness of their original nature is gone for ever. But to return from this digression upon the ladies, other strong points of resemblance might easily be pointed out between the French and the native Indian character. The same low cunning, the same restless spirit of intrigue, the same gross flattery, the same astonishing command of countenance, and invariable politeness before strangers, the same complete sacrifice of every thing, character, principle, reputation, to the love of money; all these strong and melancholy features are clearly distinguishable in both. A servant who wishes for a place, a workman who is a candidate for employment, a shopkeeper who is anxious for customers, all invariably, as in India, pay money to some one who recommends them; and such is the poverty of the higher orders, that they compromise the meanness of the transaction, and receive these bribes with all the alacrity imaginable; and this system, which begins in these lesser transactions, is, in the disposal of offices under government, and the regulation of the patronage of the crown, the prime mover in France. If an office is to be disposed of, the constant phrase in France is, as in India, il faut grassier la pate. I was acquainted with two judges in France, who made not the least scruple to acknowledge that they owed their appointments to bribes, delicately administered. The bribes consisted in presents of fruit, presented in a gold dish. The similarity between the French and the inhabitants of eastern countries, on their hyperbolical compliments, had been observed by Montesquieu, in his Persian Letters, before the revolution; and by the effects of that lengthened scene of guilt and of confusion, as well as by the consequences of the military despotism under Napoleon, it has been increased to so great a degree, as to present a parallel more apt and striking than can be easily conceived.

The excessive poverty of the higher orders, more particularly amongst the old nobility, has not only subjected them to this meanness of taking bribes, but has produced also amongst them a species of fawning servility of manner towards their inferiors; and this has, in its turn, in a great degree destroyed that high feeling of superior rank and superior responsibility, and that standard of amiable and noble manners, which are amongst the happiest consequences resulting from the institution of a hereditary nobility. The consequence of this servility amongst the noblesse, has inevitably produced a corresponding arrogance and insolence in the lower orders. One may see a French servant enter his master's room without taking off, or even touching his hat, engage in the conversation whilst he is mending the fire, throw himself upon a chair, and thus deliver the message he has been entrusted with, arrange his neckcloth at the glass, and dance out of the room, humming a tune. To an Englishman, this familiarity, from its excessive impudence, creates at first more amusement than irritation; but it becomes disgusting when we consider its consequences upon national manners, and that its causes are to be traced to national crime. I have seen a French gentleman take his grocer by the hand, and embracing him, hope for his company at supper. This submissive meanness towards their tradesmen, is of course much increased by their dread of the day of reckoning; and is therefore ultimately the consequence of their poverty.

It happened that an English nobleman, who lately visited France, had shewn much kindness to one of the ancienne noblesse during his stay in England. For upwards of a year, he had insisted on his living with him at his country seat. Upon the eve of leaving England for France, he wrote to his old acquaintance, desiring him to take suitable apartments for him in Paris. The Frenchman returned a most polite answer, expressing how much he felt himself hurt by the idea that his Lordship should dream of taking apartments, whilst his hotel was at his service. The English nobleman, accordingly, lived for two months at the hotel; but to his astonishment, upon taking his departure, Monsieur presented him with a regular bill, charging for every article, and including a very high rent for the lodgings. This is hardly to be credited by those unacquainted with the present condition of France; but I am induced to believe the story to be in every particular correct, as the authority was unquestionable. This excessive poverty amongst the higher classes, their being often unable, from their narrow circumstances, to support a house and separate establishment, their living in miserable lodgings when they are low in purse, snatching a spare meal at some cheap restaurateur's, and being unaccustomed to the comfort of regular meals in their own house, is the cause that they are all devotedly and generally attached to good eating, whenever they can get it, and that to such an excess, that a stranger, in attending a ball supper in France, or treating a French party to dinner, will be astonished at the perseverance of their palates, and the wonderful expedition with which both sexes contrive to travel through the various dishes on the table. The behaviour of Sancho at Camacho's wedding, when he rolled his delighted eyes over the assembled flesh-pots, is but a prototype of what I have witnessed equally in French men and French women upon these occasions.

At a ball supper, where it is often impossible in England to prevail upon the ladies to taste a morsel, you may see these delicate females of France, regale themselves with dressed dishes, swallow, with incredible avidity, repeated bowls of strong soup, and after a short interval, sit down to potations of hot punch, strong enough to admit of being set on fire. Nothing can certainly be more destructive of all ideas of feminine delicacy, than to see a beautiful woman with one of these midnight bowls burning before her, and when her complexion is rendered livid by its flames, looking through this medium like some unknown but voracious inhabitant of another world.

An English family of our acquaintance, who had settled at Aix, and who wished to see company, imagined, naturally, that it would be necessary to go through all the tedious process of preliminary introductions, which are necessary in England. A French friend was consulted upon the subject, and his advice was as simple as it was effectual: [52]"Donnez un souper, cela fera courir tout le monde." Sometime after this, happening to be conversing with the same gentleman upon this subject:[53] "Soyez bien sur, Monsieur, (said he), que si le diable donne a souper, tout le monde soupera dans l'enfers."

Versatility, that ruling feature in the French character, ought not to be forgotten. They have of late been so accustomed to change, that change has become not only natural, but, one would imagine, in some measure necessary to their happiness. They change their leaders and their sovereigns, with as much apparent ease as they do their fashions. On the slightest new impulse, they change their thoughts, their oaths, their love, their hatred. In this particular, a French mob is the most remarkable thing in the world; they cannot exist without some favourite yell, some particular watch-word of the day, or rather of the hour. One day it is, [54]"A bas le tyran! A bas les soldats!" the next it is "Vive l'Empereur! Vivent les Marchaux! Vive l'armée!" or it is, "Vive Louis le desiré! Vive le fils de bon Henri!" and in the next breath, "Vive le nation! Point de loix foedaux! Point des rois! Point de noblesse!" then, "Point des droits reunis! Point de conscriptions!" and during the desolating æra of the revolution, their favourite cry presented an exact picture of the character of the nation—of the same nation, which, in these dark days of continual horror, could yet amuse, itself by an exhibition of dancing-dogs, under the blood-dropping stage of the guillotine; their cry was then, [55]"Vive la Mort!" Utterly inattentive to these inconsistencies, the French people continue willingly to cry out whatever rallying word may be given to them by those agents who, working in secret, according to the ruling authorities and the prevailing politics of the day, are employed to excite them. The calamitous consequence of this mean and thoughtless principle is, that they submit themselves to the regulation of all the spies and police emissaries who, as the pensioned menials pf government, are continually insinuating themselves amongst them. Louis XVIII., unaccustomed to this system, from his long residence in England, has employed fewer spies than Napoleon, and the consequence has been, that the cry of Vive le Roi has never been re-echoed with that same high-sounding, though hollow enthusiasm, with which they vociferated Vive l'Empereur. An instance of the pliability of a French mob occurred a short time before our coming to Aix: When Napoleon, on his way to Elba, passed through Moulines, his carriage having halted at one of the inns, was immediately surrounded by a mob, amongst whom a cry of Vive l'Empereur was instantly raised. The Emperor's servants began laughing, and some one amongst, the mob imagining it to be in derision, exclaimed, with manifest disappointment, "Eh bien, Messieurs, que voulez vous donc; mais allons mes amis! crions tous Vive le Roi;" and having once received this new impulse, they not only raised, with one consent, a shout of Vive le Roi, but next moment, by their menaces, compelled Napoleon, who began to tremble for his person, to join in the cry of loyalty. Such was the miserable situation of that man, who, in the words of Augereau, [56]"apres avoir immolé des millions des victimes, n'a su mourir en soldat;" and such the treatment of a French mob to one whose name, the moment before, they had extolled with all the symptoms of the most devoted enthusiasm.

J'ai vu l'impie, adorè sur le terre
Pareil au cedre, il cachoit dans le cieux
Son front audacieux.
Il sembloit a son grè gouverner la tonnere,
Fouler aux pieds ses enemis vaincus,
Je ne fis que passer, il a'etoit deja plus.

Amidst all their misfortunes, the French people, and more especially the peasantry, have contrived to preserve their characteristic gaiety. They are still, without, doubt, the most cheerful people in Europe, the least liable to any thing like continued depression, and the most easily amused by trifles. If we except the peasantry, whose situation is comparatively comfortable, they are subject to continual deprivations. They are wretchedly poor, and driven by this poverty to meannesses which they would in other situations despise. Their labour is frequently demanded where refusal is impossible, and obedience attended with no remuneration. They themselves are hurried away, if young, to fill up the miserable quotas of the conscription; torn from the happiest scenes of their youth, and banished from every object of their affection. If old, they are doomed to pass their solitary years uncomforted, and unsupported. The hopes of their age may have fallen, but amidst all this complicated misery, it is indeed most wonderful that they yet continue to be cheerful. The accustomed gaiety of their spirits will not even then desert them; and meeting with a stranger who enters into conversation with them, or seated with a few friends at a caffé, they will sip their liqueurs, smoke their segars, and talk with enthusiasm of the triumphs and glory of the grande nation, although these triumphs may have given the fatal blow to all that constituted their happiness, and in this glory they may see the graves of their children. This is not patriotism: It is a far lower principle. It is produced by national pride, vanity, thoughtlessness, a contempt or ignorance of domestic happiness, and all this allied to an unconquerable levity and heartlessness of disposition. It is not therefore that severe but noble principle, the silent offspring between thought and sorrow, which soothes at least where it cannot cure, and alleviates the acuteness of individual sufferings, by the consolation that our friends have fallen in the courageous execution of their duty. It has in its composition none of those higher feelings, but is more an instinct, and one too of a shallow and degrading nature, than any thing like a steady and regulating moral principle.

This, however, which makes them unconscious to any thing like unhappiness, renders them, under imprisonment, banishment, and deprivation, more able to endure the hardships and reverses of war than any other troops.

It is perhaps an improper word in speaking of imprisonment and banishment to a Frenchman, to say they endure it better; the truth is, they do not feel it so acutely, and the reason is, that the military, owing to their restless and wandering life, are comparatively less attached than other troops to their native country. They suffer better, because they feel less.

In courage the English soldiers certainly equal them, and in physical strength they far surpass them; but the mind of a Frenchman is, for hard service, far better constituted than that of an Englishman. Nothing, it is well known, is so difficult as to rally an English force after any thing approaching even to a defeat. This is by no means the case with the French, and the history of the last campaign, preceding the restoration of the Borbons, contains a detailed account of many successive' defeats, after which the French army rallied and fought as undauntedly as before; and during the last war there was not perhaps a single battle contended with more determination than that of Toulouse.

In regard to the lower orders of the peasantry, it is amongst them alone that we can yet distinctly discern the last traces of the ancient French character. They are certainly, from the sale of the great landed estates at the revolution, (which, divided into small farms, were bought by the lower orders,) for the most part comparatively in a rich and independent situation; and poverty is far more generally felt by the higher classes of the nation, than by the regular peasantry of the country. Yet with all this, they have become neither insolent nor haughty to their superiors; and you will meet at this day with more real unsophisticated politeness, and more active civility amongst the present French peasantry, than is to be found among the nobility or the soldiery of the nation.

It is to them alone that the hopes of the revival of the French nation must ultimately turn. It is from this quarter that France, if she is ever to possess them, must alone derive those pacific energies, which, whilst they may render her as a nation less generally terrible, will yet cause her to be more individually happy.

In every country, we must regard the peasantry as the sinews and stamina of the state. They are, in every respect, to the nation what the heart is to the individual; the centre from which health, energy and vigour must be imparted to the remotest portions of the political body. If such is the rank held by the peasantry in all countries, much more important: is the station which they at present fill in France, and far more momentous (owing to the circumstances in which that kingdom now stands), are the duties which they owe to their country. It is there alone that any sufficient antidote can be found for that political misery, occasioned by such a course of unprincipled national triumphs, as had been so long the boast of France, and which we have so lately closed in all the splendour of legitimate victory. It is to them that the court must look for the restoration of that moral principle, which, under the administration of the late Emperor, it so thoroughly despised: It is to them that the army must look for the restoration of those high feelings of military honour, which we shall seek in vain in the present soldiery of France: It is from them that the great landed proprietors and the country gentlemen (if that honourable name is ever again to be realised in France), must learn to sacrifice their schemes of individual enjoyment, and to renounce the dissipations of the capital for the severer duties which await them in the interior of the kingdom.

I have before mentioned that civility and politeness which is still so characteristic of the peasantry of the kingdom. In addition to this, from every thing I could observe, they appeared to be really comfortable, and their invariable cheerfulness was accompanied by that flow of easy unpremeditated mirth, which gave us the impression that they were really happy. In the streets of Paris, and in the different ranks of society in the capital, you see, I think, the same outward symptoms of happiness; but, in many instances, their high sounding expressions of joy appear more like the wish to be happy, than the sober possession of happiness. The soldiery, in particular, seem, by their loud and repeated sallies, to have embraced a desperate kind of plan, of actually roaring themselves into forgetfulness; whereas the peasantry of the kingdom, after having passed the day in the labour of their fields or vineyards, dispersing in little troops through their village, the old to converse over the stories of their youth, the young dancing to the pipe and tabor, or singing in little groupes, arranged on the green seats under their orchard trees, appear, without effort, to sink into that enviable state of unforced enjoyment, which falls upon their minds as easily and calmly as the sleep of Heaven upon their eyelids.

Amongst the French, dancing is that strong and prevailing passion which is found in every rank in society, which is confined to no sex, nor age, nor figure, but is universally disseminated throughout every portion of the kingdom; from the cottage to the court, from the cradle to the grave, the French invariably dance when they can seize an opportunity. Nay, the older the individual, the more vigorous seems to be the passion. Wrinkles may furrow the face, but lassitude never attacks the limbs.

It is their singular perseverance in this favourite pursuit which renders a French ball to a stranger more than commonly ludicrous. In England, when the company begins to assemble, you are delighted with the troops of young and blooming girls, who throng into the dancing room, with faces beaming with the desire, and forms bounding with the anticipation of pleasure. In France, you must conceive the room to be superbly lighted up, and the walls covered with large mirrors, which, in their indefinite multiplication, suffer nothing, however ludicrous, to escape them. The folding doors slowly open, and there begins to hobble in, (as quick as their advanced years will permit them,) unnumbered forms of aged ladies and gentlemen, intermixed with some possessing certainly the firmer step of middle life, but few or none who dare pretend to the activity of youth. On one side comes the old Marquis, dressed in the extremity of the fashion, every ruffle replete with effect, and not a curl but what he would tremble to remove, stepping, with the most finished complacency, at the side of some antiquated dame of sixty, who minces and rustles at his side in the costume of sixteen. Previous to the dancing, it is indeed ridiculous to observe the series of silent tendernesses, the sly looks and fascinating glances with which these old worthies entertain each other. Meanwhile the music strikes up, and the floor is instantly covered with waltzers. It is well known, that the waltz is a dance, above all others, requiring grace and youth, and activity in those who perform it. Nothing, therefore, to a stranger, can be more entertaining, than the sight of those motley and aged couples, who, with a desperate resolution, stand up to bid defiance to the warnings of nature; and who, after they have first swallowed a tumbler of punch, (which is their constant practice,) begin to reel round with the waltzers, putting you in mind of Miss Edgeworth's celebrated Irish horse, Knockegroghery, who needed to have porter poured down his throat, and to be warmed in his harness, before he could achieve any thing like continued motion. In England, few ladies, unless those who are extremely young, ever dream of dancing after their marriage. In France, the young ladies before marriage are seldom admitted into company; after marriage, therefore, their gaiety instantly commences, and continues literally until the total failure of the physical powers of nature puts an end to the ability, though not to the love of pleasure. Any thing, therefore, it may be well believed, which comes between the French ladies and this mania for dancing, produces no ordinary effect. One of our party observed at a ball, a French lady of quality in the deepest mourning. On coming up to her, she remarked to the English lady, with a face of much melancholy, that her situation was indeed deplorable. "Look at me," said she, "these are the weeds for my mother, who has only been two months dead. Do you see these odious black gloves; they will not permit me to join in your amusements; but oh! how the heart dances, when the feet can't." "Come, come," said another female waltzer of fifty, whose round little body we had traced at intervals, rolling and pirouetting about the room; "come, we forget that the fast of Ash Wednesday begins at twelve. We may sup well before twelve, but not a morsel after it. We have but one short hour to eat, but we may dance, you know, all night."

By our acquaintance with the best society in Aix, we have enjoyed no unfavourable opportunity of forming an idea of the present condition of society in the south of France. One of the first circumstances which we all remarked, and which has probably occurred to most who have associated in French society, was the wide range over which the titles of nobility extended. We indeed heard, that at Aix, where we resided, and at Toulouse, there were to be found more of the old nobility than in any other parts of France. These towns were, on account of the cheapness of living, the depôts of the emigrant gentlemen whose fortunes had been reduced by the revolution, the receptacles of the ancient aristocracy of France. Yet even making every allowance for this circumstance, when we recollect the appearance and manners of many who were dignified by the titles of Marquis, Counts and Barons, it was impossible not to feel that, when compared with our own country, there was a kind of profanation of the aristocracy; and I should not be much surprised, if it was afterwards discovered, by some who would take the pains to investigate the subject narrowly, that in these remote parts of the kingdom, there subsisted a species of silent understood compact, by which the parties agreed, that if the one was dignified by his friends with the title of Marquis, he would in his turn make no scruple to favour the other with the appellation of Count. Certainly, when requested to explain the principles upon which titles of dignity descended, the account given by these noblemen themselves was quite unsatisfactory, and nearly unintelligible. The different orders also of knighthood, appeared to us to be very widely extended. The Chevaliers de St Louis were literally swarming. You could scarcely enter a shop, where you did not instantly discover one or more of these gentry sitting on the counter, conversing with the shopkeeper, or flirting with his daughter or wife. In their dress and general appearance in the forenoon, there appeared to be an unlimited latitude of shabbiness allowed both to the ladies and gentlemen; while in the evening, on the contrary, whether at home or abroad, we found them uniformly handsomely, and, making allowance for the difference of national costume, often elegantly drest. Nothing, indeed, could be more singular than the contrast between the extraordinary apparel of the same ladies (and those ladies of quality, marchionesses and countesses) whom we had visited at their own houses in the forenoon, and their appearance, when we met them in the evening, at the public concerts or private parties given at Aix. In the morning, you will find them receiving visits in their bed-rooms in the most complete dishabille; their night-cap not removed, a little bed-gown thrown carelessly over them; their hair in papillots, and their handsome ancles covered by coarse list slippers. In the evening, the bonnet de nuit is discarded, and a snow-white plume of feathers waves upon its former foundation; the little bed-gown is thrown aside, and a superb robe of satin rustles and glitters in its stead; the head, instead of being bristled with papillots, is clothed with the most luxuriant curls; and the unrivalled foot and ancle display at once, in the beauty of their shape and the elegance of their decoration, the bounty of nature and the unwearied assiduity of nature's assistant journeymen—the shoemakers. The style of French parties is certainly very dissimilar to those we are accustomed to in our own country. And this difference is easily to be traced to the remarkable differences in the character of the two nations. To the prevailing influence of the fancy, the power of imagination and the love of amusement amongst the French, and to those ideas of sober sense, that spirit of phlegmatic indifference, and the engrossing influence of public employments, which are remarkable in the English nation. During our residence in the south, we were invited by the Countess de R—— to a ball, which, she told us, was given in honour of her son's birth-day. We went accordingly, and were first received in the card-rooms, which we found brilliantly lighted and decorated, and full of company. We were then conducted into another handsome apartment fitted up as a theatre. The curtain rose, and the young Count de R—— tripped lightly from behind the scenes, with the most complete self-possession, and at the same time, with great elegance, begun a little address to the audience, apologising for his inability to amuse them as he could have wished, and concluded his address, by singing, with a great deal of action, two French songs. He then skipped nimbly off the stage and returned, leading in the principal actress at the theatre here, M. de——. They performed together a little dramatic interlude composed for the occasion; the company then adjourned into the card-rooms, and the evening concluded by a ball. At another private party we attended when the company were assembled; a folding door flew open, and a party of ladies and gentlemen, fantastically drest as shepherds and shepherdesses, flew into the room, and to our great amusement, began acting with their pipes and crooks and garlands, and all the paraphernalia of pastoral life, those employments of rural labour, or scenes of rustic courtship, which, in their public amusements, we have before remarked as peculiar favourites with the French people.

If, as we have above remarked, for the hopes of the restoration of truth, and honour, and principle, in France, we must turn to the lower orders, it will not, I trust, be thought too trifling to observe, that any thing like real excellence in music, another favourite national propensity, is, as far as we could observe, to be found in the peasantry alone. The music of the capital, the modern compositions performed at the opera, the prevailing songs of the day, are all noisy, unmeaning, unharmonious (I speak, of course, merely from personal feeling, and with deference to those better able to form an opinion upon the subject;) but it is impossible to hear the unharmonious crash which proceeds from the orchestra of the opera, without immediately recollecting the celebrated pun of Rosseau: "Pour l'Academie de musique, certainement il fait le plus du bruit du monde." On the other hand, it is amongst the peasantry alone that you now find the ancient music of France. Those airs which are so deeply associated with all the glory and gallantry of the old monarchy; those songs of olden times, which were chanted by the wandering Troubadours, as they returned from foreign wars to their native vallies, and whose simple melody recalls the days of chivalry in which they arose: these, and all others of the same æra, which once composed in truth the national music of this great people, are no longer to be found amongst the higher classes of the community. But they still exist among the peasantry. The vine-dresser, as he begins, with the rising sun, his labours in the vineyards; or the poor muleteer, as he drives his cattle to the water, will chant, as he goes along, those ancient airs, which, in all their native simplicity, he has heard from his fathers; and which, in other days, have echoed through the halls of feudal pride, or have been sung in the bowers of listening beauty. Of the prevalence of this refined taste in poetry among the lower orders of the peasantry, the following fragment of an old ballad, still very commonly sung to the ancient Troubadour air by the peasantry of Provence, may be given as a familiar instance:


LE TROUBADOUR.

Un gentil Troubadour
Qui chant et fait la guerre,
Revennit chez son Pere
Revant a son amour.
Gages de sa valeur
Suspendus en echarpe,
Son epée et sa harpe
Croisaient sur son cœur.

Il rencontre en chemin
Pelerine jolie
Qui voyage et qui prie
Un rosaire a la main,
Colerette aux longs plies
Gouvre sa fine taille,
Et grande chapeau de paille
Cache son front divin.

"Ah! gentil Troubadour,
Si tu reviens fidele,
Chant un couplet pour celle
Qui benit ton retour."
"Pardonnez mon refus,
Pelerine jolie,
Sans avoir vu m'amie,
Je ne chanterai plus."

"Ne la revois tu pas—
Oh Troubadour fidele,
Regarde la—C'est elle,
Ouvre lui donc tes bras.
Priant pour notre amour
J'allois en pelerine
A la vierge divine
Demander son secours."

I believe no apology need be made for subjoining here, another very favourite song in the French army: One of our party heard it sung by a body of French soldiers, who were on their return to their homes, from the campaign of Moscow.

LA CENTINELLE.

L'Astre de nuit dans son paisible eclat
Lanca ses feux sur les tentes de la France,
Non loin de camp un jeune et beau soldat
Ainsi chantoit appuyè sur sa lance.

"Allez, volez, zephyrs joyeux,
Portez mes vœux vers ma patrie,
Dites que je veille dans ces lieux,
Que je veille dans ces lieux,
C'est pour la gloire et pour m'amie.

L'Astre de jour r'animera le combat,
Demain il faut signaler ma valence;
Dans la victoire on trouve le trepas,
Mais si je meura an coté de ma lance,—

Volez encore, zephyrs joyeux,
Portez mes regrets vers ma patrie,
Dites que je meurs dans ces lieux,
Que je meurs dans ces lieux,
C'est pour la gloire et pour m'amie."

It is certainly productive of no common feelings, when, in travelling into the interior of the country, you find these beautiful songs, so much despised in the metropolis! of the nation, still lingering in their native vallies, and shedding their retiring sweetness over those scenes to which they owed their birth.

How much is it to be desired that some man of genius, some lover of the real glory of his country, would collect, with religious hand, these scattered flowers, which are so fast sinking into decay, and again raise into general estimation the beautiful and forgotten music of his native land.

In a discussion upon French manners, and the present condition of French society, it is impossible but that one great and leading observation must almost immediately present itself, and the truth of which, on whatever side, or to whatever class of society you may turn, becomes only the more apparent as you take the longer time to consider it; this is, that the French carry on every thing in public. That every thing, whether it is connected with business or with pleasure, whether it concerns the more serious affair of political government, or the pursuit of science, or the cultivation of art, or whether it is allied only to a taste for society, to the gratification of individual enjoyment, to the passing occupations of the day, or the pleasures of the evening—all, in short, either of serious, or of lighter nature, is open and public. It is carried on abroad, where every eye may see, and every ear may listen. Every one who has visited France since the revolution must make this remark. The first thing that strikes a stranger is, that a Frenchman has no home: He lives in the middle of the public; he breakfasts at a caffé; his wife and family generally do the same. During the day, he perhaps debates in the Corps Legislatif, or sleeps over the essays in the Academie des Sciences, or takes snuff under the Apollo, or talks of the fashions of the Nouvelle Cour, at the side of the Venus de Medicis, or varies the scene by feeding the bears in the Jardin des Plantes. He then dines abroad at a restaurateur's. His wife either is there with him, or perhaps she prefers a different house, and frequents it alone. His sons and daughters are left to manage matters as they best can. The sons, therefore, frequent their favourite caffés, whilst the daughters remain confined under the care of their bonnes or duennas. In the evening he strolls about the Palais, joins some friend or another, with whom he takes his caffé, and sips his liqueurs in the Salon de Paix or Milles Colonnes; he then adjourns to the opera, where, for two hours, he will twist himself into all the appropriate contortions of admiration, and vent his joy, in the strangest curses of delight, the moment that Bigottini makes her appearance upon the stage; and, having thus played those many parts which compose his motley day, he will return at night to his own lodging, perfectly happy with the manner he has employed it, and ready, next morning, to recommence, with recruited alacrity, the same round of heterogeneous enjoyment. Such is, in fact, an epitome of the life of all Frenchmen, who are not either bourgeoise, employed constantly in their shops during the day, or engaged in the civil or military avocations—of those who are in the same situation in France, as our gentlemen of independent fortune in England. Another peculiarity is, that the Frenchmen of the present day are not only always abroad, in the midst of the public, but that they invariably flock from the interior of the kingdom into Paris, and there engage in those public exhibitions, and bustle about in that endless routine of business or pleasure, which is passing in the capital. The French nobility, and the men of property who still remain in the kingdom, invariably spend their lives in Paris. Their whole joy consists la exhibiting themselves in public in the capital. Their magnificent chateaus, their parks, their woods and fields, and their ancient gardens, decorated by the taste, and often cultivated by the hands of their fathers, are allowed to fall into unpitied ruin. If they retire for a few weeks to their country seat, it is only to collect the rents from their neglected peasantry, to curse themselves for being condemned to the triste sejour of their paternal estate; and, after having thus replenished their coffers, to dive again from their native woods, with renewed strength, into all the publicity and dissipation of the capital. This was not always the state of things in France. Previous to, and during the reign of Henry IV. the manners, the society, and the mode of life of the nobility and gentlemen of the kingdom, were undoubtedly different The country was not then deserted for the town; the industry of the peasantry was exerted under the immediate eye of the proprietor; and his happiness formed, we may believe, no inferior object in the mind of his master; If we look at the domestic memoirs which describe the condition of France in these ancient days, we shall find that even from the early age of Francis I. till the commencement of the political administration of Richelieu, the situation of this country presented a very different picture; and that the lives of the country gentlemen were passed in a very opposite manner from that unnatural state of the kingdom to which we have above alluded. Even the condition of the interior of the kingdom, as it is now seen, points to this happier state of things. Their chateaus, which are now deserted,—their silent chambers, with tarnished gilding and decaying tapestry, remind us of the days when the old nobleman was proud to spend his income on the decoration and improvement of his property; the library, on whose walls we see the family pictures, in those hunting and shooting dresses which tell of the healthier exercises of a country retirement; whilst on the shelves, there sleeps undisturbed the forgotten literature of the Augustan age of France—all this evidently shows, that there was once, at least, to be found in the interior of the kingdom, another and a different state of things. In the essays of Montaigne, the private life of a French gentleman is admirably depicted. His days appear to have been divided between his family, his library, and his estate. A French nobleman lived then happy in the seat of his ancestors. His family grew up around him; and he probably visited the town as rarely as the present nobility do the country,—the education of his children,—the care of his peasantry,—the rural labours of planting and gardening,—the sports of the country,—the grandes chasses which he held in his park, surrounded by troops of servants who had been born on his estate, and who evinced their affection by initiating the young heir into all the mysteries of the chase, the enjoyment of the society of his friends and neighbours; all these varied occupations filled up the happy measure of his useful and enviable existence. The life of the country proprietor in these older days of France, assimilated, in short, in a great degree to the present manner of life amongst the same classes which is still observable in England.

It is impossible to conceive any thing more striking than the difference between this picture of a French chateau in these older days, and the condition in which you find them at the present moment. We once visited the chateau of one of the principal noblemen in Provence; and he himself had the politeness to accompany us. The situation of the castle was perfectly beautiful; but on coming nearer, every thing showed that it was completely neglected. The different rooms, which were once superb, were now bare and unfurnished. The walks through the park, the seats and temples in the woods, and the superb gardens, were speedily going to decay. The surface of his ponds, in the midst of which the fountains still played, were covered with weeds, and the rank grass was waving round the bases of the marble statues, which were placed at the termination of the green alleys; every thing showed the riches, the care, and the taste of a former generation, and the carelessness, and neglect of the present. On remonstrating with the proprietor, he defended himself by telling us how lonely he should feel at such a distance from Paris: "C'est toujours ici (said he), un triste sejour." A collation was served up, and after this, being in want of amusement, he opened a closet in the corner of the room, and discovered to us, in its recess, a vast variety of toys, which he began to exhibit to the ladies, telling us, "that when forced to live in the country, he diverted his solitary hours with these entertaining little affairs."

Nothing certainly can be more striking than this contrast between the modern and ancient life of a French proprietor or nobleman; and it is a question which must necessarily arise in the mind of every one, who has observed this remarkable difference, what are the causes to which so great a change is owing? Perhaps, if we look into it, this extraordinary change will be found to have arisen chiefly out of the vigorous, but dangerous policy of that age, when, under the administration of Richelieu, the power of the sovereign rose upon the ruins of the aristocracy—when the institution of standing armies first began to be systematically followed—and when, by the perfection of their police, and that vilest of all inventions, their espionage, the comfort, the security, and the confidence of society was destroyed, by the secret influence of these poisonous and pensioned menials of government. In the successful accomplishment of these three great objects, was involved the destruction of that older state of France, which was to be seen under Henry III. and IV. The schemes by which Richelieu succeeded in drawing the nobility from the interior of the country to Paris, the style of splendid living, sumptuous expences, and magnificent entertainments which he introduced, produced two unhappy effects; it removed them from their country seats, and forced them at the same time to drain their estates, in order to defray their increasing expences in the capital. It made them dependent in a great measure upon the crown; and thus tied them down to Paris. On the other hand, by what has been termed his admirable police, by his encouragement to all informers, by the jealousy of any thing like private intercourse, he rendered the retirement of their homes, the fire-side of their families, instead of that sacred spot, around which was once seated all the charities of life, the very center of all that was hollow, gloomy, and suspicious. It was in this manner that the French seem actually to have been driven from the society of their families, to seek a kind of desperate solitude in public; and that which was at first a necessity, has, in the progress of time, become an established habit. But I have to apologise for introducing, in a chapter of this light nature, and that perhaps in too strong language, these vague conjectures upon so serious a subject as this change in the condition of French society.

One necessary effect of the taste for publicity, formerly mentioned, is, that in France every thing is in some way or other attempted to be made a spectacle; and this favourite word itself has gradually grown into such universal usage, that it has acquired such power over the minds of all classes of the people, as to be hardly ever out of their mouths. Whatever they are describing, be it grave or gay, serious or ludicrous, a comedy or a tragedy, a scene in the city or in the country; in short, every thing, of whatever nature or character it may chance to be, which is seen in public, is included under this all-comprehensive term; and the very highest praise which can be given it, is, "Ah Monsieur, c'est un vrai spectacle. C'est un spectacle tout a fait superbe." It is this taste for spectacles, this inordinate passion for every thing producing effect, every thing which can add in this manner to what they conceive ought to be the necessary arrangement in all public exhibitions, which has, in many of these exhibitions, completely destroyed all the deeper feelings which they would otherwise naturally be calculated to produce. It is this taste which has created that dreadful and disgusting anomaly in national antiquities, the Museé des Monumens François, which has mangled and dilapidated the monuments of the greatest men, and the memorials of the proudest days of France, to produce in Paris a spectacle worthy of the grande nation. It is this same taste, which, in that solemn commemoration of the death of their king, the service solennel for Louis XVI. contrived to introduce a species of affected parade,—a detailed and theatrical sort of grief,—a kind of meretricious mummery of sorrow, which banished all the feelings, and almost completely destroyed the impression which such a scene in any other country would inevitably have produced. Any thing, it may be easily imagined, which gratifies this general taste for public exhibitions, and any thing which is fitted to increase their effect, is greeted by the French with the highest applause. One would have imagined, that the first appearance of Lord Wellington in the French opera, would, to most Frenchmen, have been a circumstance certainly not to make an exhibition of: Very far from it—The presence of Lord Wellington added greatly to the general effect of the spectacle. This was all the French thought of; and he was received, if possible, with more enthusiastic applause, and more reiterated greetings than the royal family of France. Would a French conqueror have met with the same reception in the opera at London?

When the reviews of the Russian troops were daily occurring in the Champ de Mars, an anxiety to examine the state of their discipline, and the general condition of their army, induced us punctually to attend them. What was our astonishment, when we saw several barouches full of French ladies, seemingly taking the greatest delight in superintending the manœuvres of the very men who had conquered the armies, and occupied the capital of their country; and delighted with the attentions which were paid them by the different Russian officers who had led them to victory?

But there is yet another exhibition in Paris, which is at once the most singular in its nature, and which shows, in the very strongest light, this general deep-set passion in the French, for the creation of what they imagine the necessary effect which ought to be attended to in every thing which is displayed in public, I mean that extraordinary exhibition which they term the Catacombs. These catacombs are large subterraneous excavations, which stretch themselves to a great extent under Paris; and which were originally the quarries which furnished the stones for building the greater part of that capital. You arrive at them by descending, by torch light, a narrow winding stair, which strikes perpendicularly into the bosom of the earth; and which, although its height is not above 70 feet, leads you to a landing-place, so dark and dismal, that it might be as well in the centre of the earth as so near its surface. After walking for a considerable time through different obscure subterranean streets, you arrive at the great stone gate of the catacombs, above which you can read by the light of the torches, "The Habitation of the Dead." On entering, you find yourself in a dark wide hall, supported by broad stone pillars, with a low arched roof, the further end of which is hid in complete obscurity; but the walls of which, (as they are illuminated by the livid and feeble gleam of the torches), are discovered to be completely formed of human bones. All this, as far as I have yet described,—- the subterranean streets which you traverse,—the dark gate of the great hall, over which you read the simple but solemn inscription,—and the gloom and silence of the chambers, whose walls you discover to be furnished in this terrible manner, is fitted to produce a most deep and powerful effect. To find yourself the only living being, surrounded on every side by the dead; to be the only thing that possesses the consciousness of existence, while millions of those who have once been as you are—millions of all ages, from the infant who has just looked in upon this world, in its innocent road to heaven, to the aged, who has fallen in the fullness of years;—and the young, the gay, and the beautiful of former centuries, lie all cold and silent around you:—it is impossible that these deep and united feelings should not powerfully affect the mind,—should not lead it to rivet its thoughts upon that last scene, which all are to act alone, and where, in the cold and unconscious company of the dead, we are here destined to "end the strange, eventful history" of our nature: But unfortunately, the guide, who now approaches you, insists upon your examining the details, which he conceives it is his duty to point out; and it is then that you discover, that this prevailing taste for producing effect, this love of the arrangements necessary to complete the spectacle, has invaded even this sacred receptacle. The ornaments which he points out, and which are curiously framed of the whitest and most polished bones; little altars which are built of the same materials in the corners of the chambers, and crowned with what the artists have imagined the handsomest skulls; and the frequent poetical quotations, which, upon a nearer view, you discern upon the walls;—all this, in the very worst style of French taste, evinces, that the same unhallowed hands which had dared to violate the monuments of their heroes, have not scrupled to intrude their presumptuous and miserable efforts, even into the humbler sanctuary allotted to the dead.

I have above described the singular, and, to a stranger, most entertaining scenes which take place at the French balls. If, however, owing to this extraordinary state of manners, to the ludicrous ardour of the old ladies, and the very moderate proportion of the young ones, a French ball is more the scene of aged folly, than of youthful pleasure, it must be allowed, that in another style of society, their lesser parties, they far excel us. The conversation in these is easy, natural, and often even fascinating. The terms of polite familiarity with which you yourself are regarded, and with which you are encouraged to treat all around you; the absence of every thing like stiffness, or formality; the little interludes of music, in which, either in singing, or in performing on some instrument, most of those you meet are able to take a part; the round games which are often introduced, and where all forget themselves to be happy, and to make others so,—this species of party is certainly something far superior to those crowded assemblies, engrafted now, as it would appear, with general consent, upon English society; and which, with a ludicrous perversity, we have denominated by that sacred word of Home, which has so long connected itself with scenes of tranquil and unobtrusive enjoyment.

After having given such a picture of the general state of French society, as we have presented in this chapter, it would be highly unjust if we did not mention, that to the above descriptions of life and manners, we found many exceptions. That we met with many very intelligent men, of liberal education and gentlemanly conduct; and that in the town where we resided, and indeed generally during our travels, we experienced the greatest hospitality and kindness. The most amiable features in the French character are shewn in their conduct to strangers. But this is one of the few points in which we think they deserve the imitation of our countrymen; and we have been the more full in our observations upon their faults, because we trust that there may ever remain a marked difference between the two nations.

The present we consider as the moment when all those who have had opportunities of judging of the French character, ought in duty to make public the information they have collected; for it is now that a more perfect intercourse must produce its effects upon the two nations; and taking it as an established maxim, that "vice to be hated, needs only to be seen," we have thus hastily laid our observations before the public, claiming their indulgence for the manifold faults to which our anxious desire to avail ourselves of the favourable moment has unavoidably given rise.