One Is Bewildered In Such A Profusion, As Not To Know Where To
Begin, And Hurried Away Before There Is Time To Consider One
Piece With Any Sort Of Deliberation.
Besides, the rooms are all
dark, and a great many of the pictures hang in a bad light.
As
for Trianon, Marli, and Choissi, they are no more than pigeon-houses,
in respect to palaces; and, notwithstanding the
extravagant eulogiums which you have heard of the French king's
houses, I will venture to affirm that the king of England is
better, I mean more comfortably, lodged. I ought, however, to
except Fontainebleau, which I have not seen.
The city of Paris is said to be five leagues, or fifteen miles,
in circumference; and if it is really so, it must be much more
populous than London; for the streets are very narrow, and the
houses very high, with a different family on every floor. But I
have measured the best plans of these two royal cities, and am
certain that Paris does not take up near so much ground as
London and Westminster occupy; and I suspect the number of its
inhabitants is also exaggerated by those who say it amounts to
eight hundred thousand, that is two hundred thousand more than
are contained in the bills of mortality. The hotels of the French
noblesse, at Paris, take up a great deal of room, with their
courtyards and gardens; and so do their convents and churches. It
must be owned, indeed, that their streets are wonderfully crouded
with people and carriages.
The French begin to imitate the English, but only in such
particulars as render them worthy of imitation. When I was last
at Paris, no person of any condition,
male or female, appeared, but in full dress, even when obliged to
come out early in the morning, and there was not such a thing to
be seen as a perruque ronde; but at present I see a number of
frocks and scratches in a morning, in the streets of this
metropolis. They have set up a petite poste, on the plan of our
penny-post, with some improvements; and I am told there is a
scheme on foot for supplying every house with water, by leaden
pipes, from the river Seine. They have even adopted our practice
of the cold bath, which is taken very conveniently, in wooden
houses, erected on the side of the river, the water of which is
let in and out occasionally, by cocks fixed in the sides of the
bath. There are different rooms for the different sexes: the
accommodations are good, and the expence is a trifle. The
tapestry of the Gobelins is brought to an amazing degree of
perfection; and I am surprised that this furniture is not more in
fashion among the great, who alone are able to purchase it. It
would be a most elegant and magnificent ornament, which would
always nobly distinguish their apartments from those, of an
inferior rank; and in this they would run no risk of being
rivalled by the bourgeois. At the village of Chaillot, in the
neighbourhood of Paris, they make beautiful carpets and screen-work;
and this is the more extraordinary, as there are hardly any
carpets used in this kingdom. In almost all the lodging-houses,
the floors are of brick, and have no other kind of cleaning, than
that of being sprinkled with water, and swept once a day. These
brick floors, the stone stairs, the want of wainscotting in the
rooms, and the thick party-walls of stone, are, however, good
preservatives against fire, which seldom does any damage in this
city. Instead of wainscotting, the walls are covered with
tapestry or damask. The beds in general are very good, and well
ornamented, with testers and curtains.
Twenty years ago the river Seine, within a mile of Paris, was as
solitary as if it had run through a desert. At present the banks
of it are adorned with a number of elegant houses and
plantations, as far as Marli. I need not mention the machine at
this place for raising water, because I know you are well
acquainted with its construction; nor shall I say any thing more
of the city of Paris, but that there is a new square, built upon
an elegant plan, at the end of the garden of the Thuilleries: it
is called Place de Louis XV. and, in the middle of it, there is a
good equestrian statue of the reigning king.
You have often heard that Louis XIV. frequently regretted, that
his country did not afford gravel for the walks of his gardens,
which are covered with a white, loose sand, very disagreeable
both to the eyes and feet of those who walk upon it; but this is
a vulgar mistake. There is plenty of gravel on the road between
Paris and Versailles, as well as in many other parts of this
kingdom; but the French, who are all for glare and glitter, think
the other is more gay and agreeable: one would imagine they did
not feel the burning reflexion from the white sand, which in
summer is almost intolerable.
In the character of the French, considered as a people, there are
undoubtedly many circumstances truly ridiculous. You know the
fashionable people, who go a hunting, are equipped with their
jack boots, bag wigs, swords and pistols: but I saw the other day
a scene still more grotesque. On the road to Choissi, a fiacre,
or hackney-coach, stopped, and out came five or six men, armed
with musquets, who took post, each behind a separate tree. I
asked our servant who they were imagining they might be archers,
or footpads of justice, in pursuit of some malefactor. But guess
my surprise, when the fellow told me, they were gentlemen a la
chasse. They were in fact come out from Paris, in this equipage,
to take the diversion of hare-hunting; that is, of shooting from
behind a tree at the hares that chanced to pass.
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