Chapter 21

PARIS.

If you do not use _Herreis_' bills, I recommend to you at _Paris_, a French, rather than an English banker; I have found the former more profitable, and most convenient. I had, ten years since, a letter of credit on _Sir John Lambert_, for £300, from _Mess. Hoares_. The _Knight_ thought proper, however, to refuse the payment of a twenty pound draft I gave upon him; though I had not drawn more than half my credit out of his hands. _Mons. Mary_, on whom I had a draft from the same respectable house, this year will not do _such things_; but on the contrary, be ready to serve and oblige strangers to the utmost of his power: he speaks and writes English very well, and will prove an agreeable and useful acquaintance to a stranger in _Paris_. His sister too, who lives with him, will be no less so to the female part of your family. His house is in _Rue Saint Sauveur_.

The English bankers pay in silver, and it is necessary to take a wheel-barrow with you to bring it away; a small bag will do at the French bankers'.

There is as much difference between the bankers of _London_ and bankers in _Paris_, as between a rotten apple and a sound one. You can hardly get a word from a London banker, but you are sure of getting your money; in _Paris_, you will get _words_ enough, and civil ones too. Remember, however, I am speaking only of the treatment I have experienced. There may be, and are, no doubt, English bankers at _Paris_ of great worth, and respectable characters.

It is not reckoned very decent to frequent coffee-houses at _Paris_; but the politeness of _Monsieur_ and _Madame Felix, au caffe de Conti_, opposite the _Pont neuf_, and the English news-papers, render their house a pleasant circumstance to me; and it is by much the best, and best situated, of any in _Paris, au vois le monde_.

I am astonished, that where such an infinite number of people live in so small a compass, (for _Paris_ is by no means so large as _London_) that they should suffer the dead to be buried in the manner they do, or within the city. There are several burial pits in _Paris_, of a prodigious size and depth, in which the dead bodies are laid, side by side, without any earth being put over them till the ground tier is full; then, and not till then, a small layer of earth covers them, and another layer of dead comes on, till by layer upon layer, and dead upon dead, the hole is filled with a mass of human corruption, enough to breed a plague; these places are enclosed, it is true, within high walls; but nevertheless, the air cannot be _improved_ by it; and the idea of such an assemblage of putrifying bodies, in one grave, so thinly covered, is very disagreeable. The burials in churches too, often prove fatal to the priests and people who attend; but every body, and every thing in _Paris_, is so much alive, that not a soul thinks about the dead.

I wish I had been born a Frenchman.--Frenchmen live as if they were never to die. Englishmen die all _their lives_; and yet as _Lewis_ the XIVth said, "I don't think it is so difficult a matter to die, as men generally imagine, when they try in earnest."

I must tell you before I leave _Paris_, that I stept over to _Marli_, to see the Queen; I had seen the King nine years ago; but he was not then a King over eight millions of people, and the finest country under the sun; yet he does not seem to lay so much stress upon his mighty power as might be expected from so young a prince, but appears grave and thoughtful. I am told he attends much to business, and endeavours to make his subjects happy. His resolution to be inoculated, immediately after succeeding to such a kingdom, is a proof of his having a great share of fortitude. In England such a determination would have been looked upon with indifference; but in France, where the bulk of the people do not believe that it secures the patient from a second attack; where the clergy in general consider it unfavourable, even in a religious light; and where the physical people, for want of practice, do not understand the management of the distemper, so as it is known in England; I may venture to say, without being charged with flattery, that it was an heroic resolution: add to this, the King knowing, that if his subjects followed his example, it must be chiefly done by their own surgeons and physicians, he put himself under their management alone, though I think _Sutton_ was then at _Paris_.

The Queen is a fine figure, handsome, and very sprightly, dresses in the present _gout_ of head dress, and without a handkerchief, and thereby displays a most lovely neck.

I saw in a china shop at _Paris_, the figure of the King and Queen finely executed, and very like, in china: the King is playing on the harp, and the Queen dropping her work to listen to the harmony. The two figures, about a foot high, were placed in an elegant apartment, and the _toute ensemble_ was the prettiest toy I ever beheld: the price thirty guineas.

I shall leave this town in a few days, and take the well-known and well-beaten _route Anglois_ for _Calais_, thro' _Chantilly_, _Amiens_, and _Boulogne_, and then I shall have twice crossed this mighty kingdom.