to their favourite pursuits, and the unlimited freedom of selection and discussion which they enjoy in their studies, give altogether to their writings, a character of sound decision, and deep research, a finish and purity of diction, a grace and elegance of taste, a philosophical solidity and dignity, in which those of their neighbours are strikingly deficient. In the higher and stronger flights, and in the deep workings of imagination, the English have always had the su periority.

During my residence in Paris, most of the fashionable families had a Cercle or Soirée once a week, at which cards formed the chief amusement. The hours of assembling and separating were earlier than those of London, and the number never so great as to destroy comfort, or preclude conversation. Such a meeting as a rout was happily unknown. The parties, engaged at whist and reversi, the games in vogue, rarely played very high, as far as my observation enabled me to judge. Balls were innumerable, and frequant among all classes of society, from the governor to the shoetack. The sound of the violin was to be heard in every part of the capital, and dancing appeared to be rather a passion, or a rage, than a common amusement.* The excellence to which the French have attained in this art, is, as you know, wholly unrivalled, and excites

The following lively picture of the prevalence of the danso-mania in Paris, is givea by Le Mercier, in his Nouveau Tableau de Paris, a work published at the close of the Revelation. We retain the author's own sprightly phraseology, as we despair of doing justice in a translation. His account of the gourmandise of the Parisian Belles is no les accurate than the rest of the picture :-

'Après l'argent, la danse est aujourd'hui tout ce que le Parisien aime, chérit, ou plit ce qu'il idolâtre.

Chaque classe a sa société dansante, et du petit au grand, c'est-à-dire, du riche au pare, tout danse; c'est une fureur, un gout universel. Its dansent, les Parisiens, ou pour mieux dire, ils tourbillonnent; car rien de plus difficile pour eux que d'obéir à mesure, et rien de plus rare parmi eux qu'une oreille musicale!

Sous le règne de la terreur, les Parisiens cois et tremblans, et n'osant pas même alors faire un journal, ni arréter une charrette, s'enfonçaient dans les spectacles ou dans les

et ne dansaient que dans les fêtes publiques, et quelquefois autour des échafauds! t-a-coup tous les murs se sont converts d'affiches nombreuses, en stile presqu' acadé , annonçant des bals de toutes couleurs, et quelques-uns à si bon marché, que la ce peut y atteindre.

'On danse aux Carmes, où l'on égorgeait; on danse au Noviciat des Jésuites; on danse onsent des Carmelites du Marais; on danse au séminaire Saint-Sulpice; on danse our Filles de Sainte-Marie; on danse dans trois églises ruinées de ma section, et sur le paré de toutes les tombes que l'on n'a point encore enlevées : les noms des morts sontsous les pieds des danseurs, qui ne les aperçoivent pas, et qui oublient qu'ils foulent des sépalchres.

On danse encore dans chaque guinguette des boulevards, au Champs-Elysées, le long des ports. On danse dans tous les cabarets où se réfugie l'infanterie de l'agiot, qui après avoir trompé tout le jour les malheureux particuliers, fait encore là échec et mat à la fortune publique. Enfin, on danse chez tous les professeurs de rigadons, qui s'appellent artistes, à l'exemple des histrions.

'Autrefois, les femmes, dans les bals, prenaient des refraîchissemens, et tout au plus quelques biscuits dans un peu de vin. La gourmandise aujourd'hui les domine, et je ne cesse d'admirer leur contenance ferme à table, et avec quelles graces franches elles satis

C 4

excites the admiration of every stranger. Among the higher orders, the youth of both sexes, allot to it two or three hours every day, for a series of years, and display an agility, and an emulation, which give to these meetings the air of a theatrical representation. A ball in one of the fine hotels of Paris, presents a scene of absolute enchantment. The amplitude and decorations of the apartments, the brilliancy of the illumination, the splendor and taste of the dresses, the vivacity of the assistants, and the dexterity of the dancers,―all contribute to produce an irresistible effect, and would transport the most sluggish imagination. The orchestra is always numerous, and well-composed, and when the airs of the waltz are sounded, one might well repeat,

"Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment: Fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss.'

Among the fashionable entertainments was one entitled a tea-party, (Un Thé à l'Anglaise,) in avowed imitation of the English manner. I was somewhat amused with the nature of this imitation.

The first

of the kind at which I was present was given by the Countess of R-, to a large assembly. The guests arrived about nine, and amused themselves with conversation and music, until midnight, when two large tables were introduced, the one bearing the teaequipage, and the other spread with bons-bons, and exhibiting a large silver bason of boiled milk, for the gratification of the amateurs of soupe-au-lait. The lady of the mansion made the tea, and distributed to those who approached to receive their dish. Such as preferred the contents of the other table, helped themselves without ceremony. After this repast was finished, the tables were cleared; and the servants immediately introduced boiling water, sugar, brandy, and lemons, the ingredients of what is vulgarly satisfont à leur strident appétit. Les perdrix froides font deux bouchées; les viandes disparaissen', et de grands verres d'eau rafraichissent par intervalle leur palais brûlé par le feu des liqueurs,

Il est des bals pour tous les états; les porteurs d'eau et les charbonniers ont les leurs ; je ne veux rien oublier. Daus des caves, meme au fond de quelques allées; dans de sales cabarets; au son d'un violon grossier, où d'une rauque musette, tous les dimanches, souvent même dans l'interv. lle, les auvergnats dansent à ébranler les planchers et à faire craindre les réparations locatives. Le lieu de la danse est éclairé ou par un lustre composé de deux morceaux de bois en croix, ou par quelques lampions rangés à terre le long des murs. Au milieu d'un nuage de fumée de tabac et d'odeur d'eau-de-vie, vous voyez s'elever et retomber sans cadence et sans mésure des danseurs inimaginables; et tout à côté, sur de méchans bancs à moitié vermoulus, des groupes d'hommes et de femmes se barbouillent de gros baisers, si hideux qu'ils me font detourner la tête, et que je voudrois aujourd-hui les déloger de ma mémoire. Quelquefois le soulier à clou dans son élan écrase le lampion et asperge toute l'assemblée: cela ne fait rien; il n'y paraîtra ni aux bas, ni à la chaussure, ni aux cotillons; le suif enflammé ne mord point sur le cuir tanné de ces Vestris: ils reprennent leurs bandouillères; et s'en vont en se donnant pour rire de gros coups de poing.'

denominated

denominated hot punch. It was mixed by the Countess, and passed from her fair hands to those of the visitors of both sexes. This singular association of tea and punch must amuse you. The second was deemed indispensable, in order to render the entertainment completely English! Dinner-parties are much less frequent in Paris, among the opulent, than in London, and of much shorter duration. The public repasts which take place in England, and in this country, accompanied by toasts, and a free expression of political sentiment, are utterly unknown in France. They are incompatible with the nature of the French government, and so would be the long sittings after dinner, in which we indulge, and which so naturally lead to political discussion.

Paris is divided into several distinct societies, which bear a very different character. The inhabitants of the Marais, the quarter in which Desèze resides, consist for the most part of respectable families, impoverished by the revolution; of lawyers and others attached to the courts of justice, of merchants, &c. who live in a frugal and unostentatious manner. They retain more of the primary morals, and of the decencies and charities of life, than any other branch of the Parisian community, and enjoy many more of its solid comforts, and highest enjoyments. They meet frequently in the evening, dance gaily, partake of a modest repast, congratulate themselves mutually on their distance from the tumult of fashionable étourderie and vice, and forget in these intervals of selfapplause, and guiltless recreation, all their past misfortunes, and their present miseries. It is among them alone, that you can trace strong vestiges of the bonhommie, the kind simplicity, the winning, unfeigned urbanity, of the old French character, and can recognise all the features of soul and manner, by which the nation once entitled itself to be called,

'An easy moved,

A quick, refined, a delicate, humane,
Enlightened people.'

cannot undertake to say, that the society of which I now speak, has not degenerated from this picture, or that it is altogether exempt from the corruption and the vulgarity which pervades the more opulent and fashionable classes. The inhabitants of the Marais live in too infectious a neighbourhood, and have too potent an example of vice before them, to have escaped its contagion. The youth of this quarter of Paris, as well as of every part of France, could not fail to suffer by the absence of all Sources of instruction, and the general havoc of manners and morals during the revolution. They offer, however, an edifying spectacle, when compared with the world of fashion, and have left with me impressions, upon which I love to dwell. I repaired to their meetings, as to a sort of refuge from the pestilential at

mosphere

mosphere of the region of power and rank, and found in them a grateful image of the social intercourse of our own country, where there is so much of 'comely grace,' of mutual good will, of sound sense, and of heartfelt cheerfulness, with so few of the jealousies and vanities, which agitate and imbitter, and none of the foul vices, and treacherous aims, which pollute and degrade, the association of the upper classes, in almost every other part of the world.

The Faubourg St. Germain, the best-built quarter of Paris, is the asylum of another description of persons, next in the scale of morality and real refinement to those of the Marais. I allude to a portion of the old nobility and proprietaries of France, who have survived the storm of the revolution, and taken up their residence in that part of the capital, with limited incomes, but with an ample residue of the same corruptions and follies that characterized them before the season of their adversity. For some time they formed a separate society, and industriously excluded the Nouveauxvenus, the new lords of the ascendant, from their meetings, in which much of the polished courtesy, and something of the solemn affectation of the old school, were retained. Various causes, however, soon conspired to overcome this fastidiousness, and their coteries now exhibit a motley group, possessing some elegance of manners and delicacy of taste, but with few of the virtues of the heart, and not much of the drapery furnished from the wardrobe of moral imagination.'

The great scene of fashionable intercourse lies in the vicinity of the principal theatres, and in the Chaussée d'Antin, a part of Paris not far distant, which contains the hotels of the opulent bankers, and of the dignitaries of the empire: the latter are the most magnificent, and luxurious in their style of living, and give tone and movement to the world of rank and fashion. Their mansions are splendidly furnished, their tables sumptuously spread, and their drawing-rooms often filled with a brilliant and numerous assemblage of guests. Most of this new nobility, as well as of the rest of those, who now support the most expensive establishments, are, as you know, persons of mean extraction, and of little or no education. The society which they collect about them consists of the military and the civil functionaries, to a majority of whom the same remark may be applied. To these are added, some of the ci-devant noblesse, and of the literati and savans, who, however, bear but a small proportion to the rest, in point of number.

In a society composed of such materials as these, you cannot expect to meet any very exqusite refinement of manners, or elegant play of the imagination; an interchange of delicate and instructive thought, or much dignity of demeanour. You will not be

surprized,

surprized, when you are told, that it exhibits opposite features; that although the mere mechanism of courtesy is not wanting, and the forms and phraseology of polite salutation are generally observed; there is still, among the mass, a grossness, and vulgarity of expression, an arrogance of tone and manner, a certain degree of ferocity in some, and of fawning adulation in others, which inspire a lively disgust, and must be particularly revolting to those, who have enjoyed an opportunity of mixing with the higher circles under the old régime.

In this class of Parisian society, there does not reign the same degree of gaiety which obtains in that of which I have previously spoken. The members of it are for the most part engaged in political intrigues, which produce reserve and abstraction. They look upon each other with an eye of distrust and fear, as they are mutually conscious of exercising the functions of spies and informers. Where treachery is apprehended, pleasure cannot dwell; where language is to be cautiously guarded, and even the countenance driled into a particular expression, lest ruin should be the consequence of an obnoxious word, or a doubtful look, there may be forced jests, and laborious laughter,' but there can be no real merriment of the heart. The faces of the public functionaries denote anxiety, caution, and restraint. Every man is watchful, either to betray others, or to defend himself, and is acting a studied part, whenever he is beyond the family-circle, and even there, if he be under the eye of a domestic. The society of the Thuileries, not-withstanding the solemn pomp, and gorgeous magnificence of the Imperial train, wears the same aspect as that I have just described. It is marked even by still greater coarseness and ignorance. Whatever powers of mimicry may belong to the national genius, the habits, manners, and morals, of unlettered soldiers and fish-women cannot be suddenly laid aside; nor, particularly where an example of ferocity and vulgarity is set by the monarch himself, can an august and polished court be formed out of such materials, although there may be blended with them, some few of a superior mould and finer texture.

As the revolution has not conduced to refine the manners, neither has it, you may be assured, operated to purify the morals of the Parisian society. The licentiousness of the old court, and the higher circles under the monarchy, was indeed great, but I am inclined to suppose, that it fell far short of that which now shocks the moral feelings in the French metropolis. If you reflect upon the state of France, during the revolution, without religious restraints, or public instruction, or a regular administration of justice; upon the system of divorce, which was in activity for so long a time, and upon the original condition, and private characters of those,

who