the distress, and even starving condition of the manufacturers, artists,1 and sailors, which grow more and more serious, and must make the idea of an attempt to overturn the revolution so much the more alarming and dangerous. The only branch of industry in the kingdom, that remains flourishing, is the trade to the sugar-colonies; and the scheme of emancipating the negroes, or at least of putting an end to importing them, which they borrowed from England, has thrown Nantes, Havre, Marseilles, Bourdeaux, and all other places connected secondarily with that commerce, into the utmost agitation. The count de Mirabeau says publicly, that he is sure of carrying the vote to put an end to negro slavery-it is very much the conversation at present, and principally amongst the leaders, who say, that as the revolution was founded on philosophy, and supported by metaphysics, such a plan cannot but be congenial. But surely trade depends on practice much more than on theory; and the planters and merchants, who come to Paris to oppose the scheme, are better prepared to shew the importance of their commerce, than to reason philosophically on the demerits of slavery. Many publications have appeared on the subject-some deserving attention.

The 18th. At the duke of Liancourt's dinner, to-day, meet the marquis de Casaux, the author of the mechanism of societies; notwithstanding all the warmth, and even fire of argument, and vivacity of manner and composition for which his writings are remarkable, he is perfectly mild and placid in conversation, with little of that effervescence one would look for from his books. There was a remarkable assertion made to-day, at table, by the count de Marguerite, before near thirty deputies; speaking of the determination on the Toulon business,' he said, it was openly supported by deputies, under the avowal that more insurrections were

1 Our author's use of this word is now obsolete.

"How to build ships and dreadful ordnance cast,
Instruct the artist and reward their haste."

WALLER.

2 A sedition that broke out Dec. 1, 1789. The Count Albert de Riom, and other officers, were thrown into prison, accused of insulting the Garde Nationale. See Le Moniteur, Dec. 11, 1789.

necessary. I looked round the table, expecting some decisive answer to be given to this, and was amazed to find that no one replied a word. Mons. Volney, the traveller, after a pause of some moments, declared, that he thought the people of Toulon had acted right, and were justifiable in what they had done. The history of this Toulon business is known to all the world. This count de Marguerite has a teté dure and a steady conduct-it may be believed that he is not an enragé. At dinner, M. Blin, deputy from Spain, mentioning the conduct of the revolution club at the Jacobins, said, we have given you a good president; and then asked the count why he did not come among them? He answered, Je me trouve heureux en verité de n'avoir jamais été d'aucune société politique particulière; je pense que mes fonctions sont publiques, et qu'elles peuvent aisément se remplir sans associations particulières. He got no reply here. At night, Mons. Decretot, and Mons. Blin, carried me to the revolution club at the Jacobins; the room where they assemble, is that in which the famous league was signed, as it has been observed above. There were above one hundred deputies present, with a president in the chair; I was handed to him, and announced as the author of the Arithmétique Politique; the president standing up, repeated my name to the company, and demanded if there were any objections- -None; and this is all the ceremony, not merely of an introduction, but an election: for I was told, that now I was free to be present when I pleased, being a foreigner. Ten or a dozen other elections were made. In this club, the business that is to be brought into the National Assembly is regularly debated; the motions are read, that are intended to be made there, and rejected or corrected and approved. When these have been fully agreed to, the whole party are engaged to support them. Plans of conduct are there determined; proper persons nominated for being of committees, and presidents of the Assembly named. And I may add, that such is the majority of numbers, that whatever passes in this club, is almost sure to pass in the Assembly. In the evening at the dutchess d'Anville's, in whose house I never failed of spending my time agreeably.

One of the most amusing circumstances of travelling

X

into other countries, is the opportunity of remarking the difference of customs amongst different nations in the common occurrences of life. In the art of living, the French have generally been esteemed by the rest of Europe, to have made the greatest proficiency, and their manners have been accordingly more imitated, and their customs more adopted than those of any other nation. Of their cookery, there is but one opinion; for every man in Europe, that can afford a great table, either keeps a French cook, or one instructed in the same manner. That it is far beyond our own, I have no doubt in asserting. We have about half a dozen real English dishes, that exceed any thing, in my opinion, to be met with in France; by English dishes I mean, a turbot and lobster sauce-ham and chicken-turtle-a haunch of venison-a turkey and oysters-and after these, there is an end of an English table. It is an idle prejudice, to class roast beef among them; for there is not better beef in the world than at Paris. Large handsome pieces were almost constantly on the considerable tables I have dined at. The variety given by their cooks, to the same thing, is astonishing; they dress an hundred dishes in an hundred different ways, and most of them excellent; and all sorts of vegetables have a savouriness and flavour, from rich sauces, that are absolutely wanted to our greens boiled in water. This variety is not striking, in the comparison of a great table in France with another in England; but it is manifest in an instant, between the tables of a French and English family of small fortune. The English dinner, of a joint of meat and a pudding, as it is called, or pot luck, with a neighbour, is bad luck in England; the same fortune in France gives, by means of cookery only, at least four dishes to one among us, and spreads a small table incomparably better. A regular dessert with us is expected, at a considerable table only, or at a moderate one, when a formal entertainment is given; in France it is as essential to the smallest dinner as to the largest; if it consists only of a bunch of dried grapes, or an apple, it will be as regularly served as the soup. I have met with persons in England, who imagine the sobriety of a French table carried to such a length, that one or two glasses of wine are all that a man

can get at dinner; this is an error; your servant mixes the wine and water in what proportion you please; and large bowls of clean glasses are set before the master of the house, and some friends of the family, at different parts of the table, for serving the richer and rarer sorts of wines, which are drunk in this manner freely enough. The whole nation are scrupulously neat in refusing to drink out of glasses used by other people. At the house of a carpenter or blacksmith, a tumbler is set to every cover. This results from the common beverage being wine and water; but if at a large table, as in England, there were porter, beer, cyder, and perry, it would be impossible for three or four tumblers or goblets to stand by every plate; and equally so for the servants to keep such a number separate and distinct. In table-linen, they are, I think, cleaner and wiser than the English: that the change may be incessant, it is every where coarse. The idea of dining without a napkin seems ridiculous to a Frenchman, but in England we dine at the tables of people of tolerable fortune, without them. A journeyman carpenter in France has his napkin as regularly as his fork; and at an inn, the fille always lays a clean one to every cover that is spread in the kitchen, for the lowest order of pedestrian travellers. The expence of linen in England is enormous, from its fineness; surely a great change of that which is coarse, would be much more rational. In point of cleanliness, I think the merit of the two nations is divided; the French are cleaner in their persons, and the English in their houses; I speak of the mass of the people, and not of individuals of considerable fortune. A bidet in France is as universally in every apartment, as a bason to wash your hands, which is a trait of personal cleanliness I wish more common in England; on the other hand their necessary houses are temples of abomination; and the practice of spitting about a room, which is amongst the highest as well as the lowest ranks, is detestable: I have seen a gentleman spit so near the cloaths of a dutchess, that I have stared at his unconcern. In every thing that concerns the stables, the English far exceed the French; horses, grooms, harness, and change of equipage; in the provinces you see cabriolets undoubtedly of the last century; an

Englishman, however small his fortune may be, will not be seen in a carriage of the fashion of forty years past; if he cannot have another, he will walk on foot. It is not true that there are no complete equipages at Paris, I have seen many; the carriage, horses, harness, and attendance, without fault or blemish;-but the number is certainly very much inferior to what are seen at London. English horses, grooms, and carriages, have been of late years largely imported. In all the articles of the fitting up and furnishing houses, including those of all ranks in the estimate, the English have made advances far beyond their neighbours. Mahogany is scarce in France, but the use of it is profuse in England. Some of the hotels in Paris are immense in size, from a circumstance which would give me a good opinion of the people, if nothing else did, which is the great mixture of families. When the eldest son marries, he brings his wife home to the house of his father, where there is an apartment provided for them; and if a daughter does not wed an eldest son, her husband is also received into the family, in the same way, which makes a joyous number at every table. This cannot altogether be attributed to œconomical motives, though they certainly influence in many cases, because it is found in families possessing the first properties in the kingdom. It does with French manners and customs, but in England it is sure to fail, and equally so amongst all ranks of people may we not conjecture, with a great probability of truth, that the nation in which it succeeds is therefore better tempered? Nothing but good humour can render such a jumble of families agreeable, or even tolerable. In dress they have given the ton to all Europe for more than a century; but this is not among any but the highest rank an object of such expence as in England, where the mass of mankind wear much better things (to use the language of common conversation) than in France: this struck me more amongst ladies who, on an average of all ranks, do not dress at one half of the expence of English women. Volatility and changeableness are attributed to the French as national characteristicks,-but in the case of dress with the grossest exaggeration. Fashions change with ten times more rapidity in England, in form, colour, and assemblage;