Indeed The Stranger Seems To Be Left Intirely At The Mercy Of Those Fellows, Except In Large Towns, Where He May Have Recourse To The Magistrate Or Commanding Officer.

The post stands very often by itself in a lone country situation, or in a paultry village, where the

Post-master is the principal inhabitant; and in such a case, if you should be ill-treated, by being supplied with bad horses; if you should be delayed on frivolous pretences, in order to extort money; if the postilions should drive at a waggon pace, with a view to provoke your impatience; or should you in any shape be insulted by them or their masters; and I know not any redress you can have, except by a formal complaint to the comptroller of the posts, who is generally one of the ministers of state, and pays little or no regard to any such representations. I know an English gentleman, the brother of an earl, who wrote a letter of complaint to the Duc de Villars, governor of Provence, against the post-master of Antibes, who had insulted and imposed upon him. The duke answered his letter, promising to take order that the grievance should be redressed; and never thought of it after. Another great inconvenience which attends posting in France, is that if you are retarded by any accident, you cannot in many parts of the kingdom find a lodging, without perhaps travelling two or three posts farther than you would choose to go, to the prejudice of your health, and even the hazard of your life; whereas on any part of the post-road in England, you will meet with tolerable accommodation at every stage. Through the whole south of France, except in large cities, the inns are cold, damp, dark, dismal, and dirty; the landlords equally disobliging and rapacious; the servants aukward, sluttish, and slothful; and the postilions lazy, lounging, greedy, and impertinent. If you chide them for lingering, they will continue to delay you the longer: if you chastise them with sword, cane, cudgel, or horse-whip, they will either disappear entirely, and leave you without resource; or they will find means to take vengeance by overturning your carriage. The best method I know of travelling with any degree of comfort, is to allow yourself to become the dupe of imposition, and stimulate their endeavours by extraordinary gratifications. I laid down a resolution (and kept it) to give no more than four and twenty sols per post between the two postilions; but I am now persuaded that for three-pence a post more, I should have been much better served, and should have performed the journey with much greater pleasure. We met with no adventures upon the road worth reciting. The first day we were retarded about two hours by the dutchess D - lle, and her son the duc de R - f - t, who by virtue of an order from the minister, had anticipated all the horses at the post.

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