Here, So
Kotzebue Has Calculated, You May Go Through All The Functions Of Life In
One Day And End It Afterwards Should You Be So Inclined.
You may eat,
drink, sleep, bathe, go to the Cabinet d'aisance, walk, read, make love,
game and, should you
Be tired of life, you may buy powder and ball or opium
to hasten your journey across Styx; or should you desire a more classic
exit, you may die like Seneca opening your veins in a bath. Deep play
goes forward day and night, and I verily believe there are some persons in
Paris who never quit these precincts. The restaurants and cafes are most
brilliantly fitted up. One, Le Cafe des Mille Colonnes, so called from
the reflection of the columns in the mirrors with which the wainscoat is
lined, boasts of a limonadiere of great beauty. She is certainly a fine
woman, dresses very well, as indeed most French women do, and has a
remarkably fine turned arm which she takes care to display on all
occasions. I do not, however, perceive much animation in her; she always
appears the same, nor has she made any more impression on me - tho' I am of
a very susceptible nature in this particular - than a fine statue or picture
would do. There she sits on a throne and receives the hommage and
compliments of most of the visitors and the money of all, which seems to
please her most, for she receives the compliments which are paid her with
the utmost sang-froid and indifference, and the money she takes especial
care to count. English troops, conjointly with the National Guard, do duty
at the entrance of the Palais Royal from the Rue St Honore; and it became
necessary to have a strong guard to keep the peace, as frequent disputes
take place between the young men of the Capital and the Prussian officers,
against whom the French are singularly inveterate.
The French, when left to themselves, are very peaceable in their pleasures
and the utmost public decorum is observed; their sobriety contributes much
to this; but if there were in London an establishment similar to that of
the Palais Royal, it would become a perfect pandemonium and would require
an army to keep the peace. The French police keep a very sharp look-out on
all political offences, but are more indulgent towards all moral ones, as
long as public decorum is not infringed, and then it is severely punished.
But they have none of that censoriousness or prying spirit in France which
is so common in England to hunt out and criticise the private vices of
their neighbours, which, in my opinion, does not proceed from any real
regard for virtue, but from a fanatical, jealous, envious, and malignant
spirit. Those vice-hunters never have the courage to attack a man of wealth
and power; but a poor artisan or labourer, who buys a piece of meat after
twelve o'clock on Saturday night, or a glass of spirits during church-time
on Sunday, is termed a Sabbath-breaker and imprisoned without mercy.
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