in the midst of all this, we fiddle, dress, rhyme, and visit as ceremoniously as though we had nothing to disturb us.  Our beaux, after being correctly frizz’d and powdered behind some door, compliment the belle just escaped from a toilet, performed amidst the apparatus of the kitchen; three or four beds are piled one upon another to make room for as many card-tables; and the wits of the prison, who are all the morning employed in writing doleful placets to obtain their liberty, in the evening celebrate the loss of it in bout-rimees and acrostics.

I saw an ass at the Corps de Garde this morning laden with violins and music, and a female prisoner seldom arrives without her complement of bandboxes.—­Embarrassed, stifled as we are by our numbers, it does not prevent a daily importation of lap-dogs, who form as consequential a part of the community in a prison, as in the most superb hotel.  The faithful valet, who has followed the fortunes of his master, does not so much share his distresses as contribute to his pleasure by adorning his person, or, rather, his head, for, excepting the article of hair-dressing, the beaux here are not elaborate.  In short, there is an indifference, a frivolity, in the French character, which, in circumstances like the present, appears unaccountable.  But man is not always consistent with himself, and there are occasions in which the French are nothing less than philosophers.  Under all these externals of levity, they are a very prudent people, and though they seem to bear with infinite fortitude many of the evils of life, there are some in which their sensibility is not to be questioned.  At the death of a relation, or the loss of liberty, I have observed that a few hours suffice, pour prendre son parti; [To make up his mind.] but on any occasion where his fortune has suffered, the liveliest Frenchman is au desespoir for whole days.  Whenever any thing is to be lost or gained, all his characteristic indifference vanishes, and his attention becomes mentally concentrated, without dissipating the habitual smile of his countenance.  He may sometimes be deceived through deficiency of judgment, but I believe not often by unguardedness; and, in a matter of interest, a petit maitre of five-and-twenty might tout en badinage [All in the way of pleasantry.] maintain his ground against a whole synagogue.—­This disposition is not remarkable only in affairs that may be supposed to require it, but extends to the minutest objects; and the same oeconomy which watches over the mass of a Frenchman’s estate, guards with equal solicitude the menu property of a log of wood, or a hen’s nest.

There is at this moment a general scarcity of provisions, and we who are confined are, of course, particularly inconvenienced by it; we do not even get bread that is eatable, and it is curious to observe with what circumspection every one talks of his resources.  The possessor of a few eggs takes care not to expose them to the eye of his neighbour; and a slice of white bread is a donation of so much consequence, that those who procure any for themselves do not often put their friends to the pain either of accepting or refusing it.