which the French could not live. Fashion is the veritable demon of the nation; one sex is as vain and as desirous of pleasure as the other; and if the women never stir without a mirror, the men also may be seen arranging and combing their wigs publicly in the streets. There is not a people so imperious and so audacious as these Parisians; they are proud of their very fickleness, and say that they are the only persons in the world who can break their promises with honour. In vain you look for modesty, wisdom, persons who have nothing to do, (a Sicilian is speaking,) or men who have grown old. But if you do not find modesty, wisdom, or old age, you find obsequiousness, gallantry, and politeness. Go into a shop, and you are cajoled into buying a thousand things you never dreamt of, before you obtain the article you want. The manner of the higher classes is something charming-there are masters who teach civility, and a pretty girl the other day offered to sell me compliments.* The women dote upon little dogs. They command their husbands and obey nobody. They dress with grace. We see them at all hours, and they

*There is still, however, I believe, a 'Professeur de Maintien' at the 'Conservatoire Royal de Musique.'

dote on conversation. As to love-they love, and listen to their lovers, without much difficulty-but they never love long, and they never love enough. I have not seen a jealous husband, or a man who thinks himself unhappy and dishonoured because his wife is unfaithful.

The

"During the Carême' the people go in the morning to a sermon, in the evening to a comedy, with equal zeal and devotion. The Abbés are in great number, and the usual resource of ladies in affliction. The young men are perpetually in the racket-court-the old men pass their time at cards, at dice, and in talking over the news of the day. Tuileries are the resort of the idle and those who wish, without taking any trouble about it, to be amused. It is there that you laugh, joke, make love, talk of what is doing in the city, of what is doing in the army; decide, criticise, dispute, deceive. Chocolate, tea, and coffee are very much in vogue; but coffee is preferred to either tea or chocolate; it is thought a remedy for low spirits. A lady learnt the other day that her husband had been killed in battle. Ah, unhappy that I am!" said she, 'quick, bring me a cup of coffee!'

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"The inhabitants of Paris are lodged upon the sides of the bridges, and even upon the

tops and tiles of the houses.

Although it does not rain often, you cannot help walking in the mud, for all the filth of the town is thrown out into the streets, which it is impossible for the magistrates, however strict, to keep clean. The ladies never go out but on mules-the gentlemen walk in large high boots. The hackney-coaches are old, battered, and covered with mud. The horses which draw them have no flesh on their bones. The coachmen are brutal; they have a voice so hoarse, and so terrible, and the smacking of their whips so horribly increases the noise, that no sooner is the rattling machine in movement, than you imagine all the furies at work in giving to Paris the sounds of the infernal regions."

Such was Paris above a century ago; let any one reflect upon the immense changes that have taken place since that time. Let any one reflect that we have had since then, Law, Voltaire, Rousseau-the orgies and bankruptcy of the Regent, the reign of Louis XV., the decapitation of Louis XVI., the wars and terrors of the republic, the tyranny of the empire, the long struggle of the restoration,-let any one reflect, that since then have been born the doctrines of equality and liberty, which will probably change the destinies of the world. Let

any one, I say, reflect on all this, and tell me, as he reads the passage I have cited, whether the resemblance is not strong between the past and the present; whether in looking at Paris under Louis Philippe he cannot trace all the main features of its picture taken during the time of Louis XIV.

Paris is certainly altered; the ladies no longer ride on mules, nor do the gentlemen arrange their headdress in the public streets. The shopkeepers have lost their extraordinary civility, the noblesse' have lost the exquisite polish of the ancient manners; there are no longer masters to teach you civility, nor young ladies who sell you compliments. The Parisians under a serious government are not so frivolous as of yore: the vanity then confined to the toilette and the drawing-room has taken a prouder flight, and prances on the 'Champ de Mars,' or harangues in the Chambre des Députés.' The passions are the same, but a new machine works them into a different shape, and produces another manufacture from the same materials. We see the change that other laws and other ideas produce, and the popular spirit which has elevated the character of the people* has civilized the hack

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* "We see," says Mercier, who wrote just previous to the revolution of eighty-nine, 66 we see at every

ney coaches, widened the streets, and saved two hundred per annum of the lives of his majesty's subjects.* We see what new ideas and new laws have changed, but we see also how much new ideas and laws have left unaltered. The wish to outvie, the desire to please, the fondness for decoration, the easy transition from one passion or one pursuit to another, the amour propre, the fickleness of the Parisian, are still as visible as they are under the Grand Monarque:' while, alas! the morals of society (if 1 may venture to say so) even yet remind you of the saying of Montesquieu, “Que le Français ne parle jamais de sa femme, parcequ'il a peur d'en parler devant les gens qui la connaissent mieux que lui."

I have said that the Parisian is almost as fickle as he was. During the old hierarchy of ranks and professions he could be fickle in ittle but his pleasures. The career which conducted him to the grave was traced at his cradle, and if he were born a footman, all he could hope was-to die a butler. The life step we take in the mud, that the people who go on foot have no share in the government."

*

Two hundred was the average calculation of persons run over in the streets of Paris: this species of amusement was much in fashion during the latter days of the old régime.