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. They accosted my servant, and asked if his master was a lord? He thought proper to answer in the affirmative, upon which the duke declared that he must certainly be of French extraction, inasmuch as he observed the lilies of France in his arms on the coach.

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