Mad. de ____ has been unwell for some days, and I could not help giving a
hint to a relation of her’s whom we found here, and who has frequent
supplies of bread from the country, that the bread we eat was peculiarly
inimical to her; but I gained only a look of repulsive apprehension, and
a cold remark that it was very difficult to get good bread—­"et que
c’etoit bien malheureux." [And that it certainly was very unfortunate.]
I own this kind of selfishness is increased by a situation where our
wants are numerous, and our enjoyments few; and the great distinctions of
meum and tuum, which at all times have occasioned so much bad fellowship
in the world, are here perhaps more rigidly observed than any where else;
yet, in my opinion, a close-hearted consideration has always formed an
essential and a predominant quality in the French character.

People here do not ruin themselves, as with us, by hospitality; and examples of that thoughtless profusion which we censure and regret, without being able entirely to condemn, are very rare indeed.  In France it is not uncommon to see a man apparently dissipated in his conduct, and licentious in his morals, yet regular, even to parsimony, in his pecuniary concerns.—­He oeconomizes with his vices, and indulges in all the excesses of fashionable life, with the same system of order that accumulates the fortune of a Dutch miser.  Lord Chesterfield was doubtless satisfied, that while his son remained in France, his precepts would have all the benefit of living illustration; yet it is not certain that this cautious and reflecting licentiousness has any merit over the more imprudent irregularity of an English spendthrift:  the one is, however, likely to be more durable than the other; and, in fact, the character of an old libertine is more frequent in France than in England.

If oeconomy preside even over the vices of the rich and fashionable, you may conclude that the habits of the middling ranks of people of small fortunes are still more scrupulously subjected to its influence.  A French menage [Household.] is a practical treatise on the art of saving—­a spirit of oeconomy pervades and directs every part of it, and that so uniformly, so generally, and so consistently, as not to make the same impression on a stranger as would a single instance where the whole was not conducted on the same principle.  A traveller is not so forcibly stricken by this part of the French character, because it is more real than apparent, and does not seem the effect of reasoning or effort, which is never consequential, but rather that of inclination and the natural course of things.