and probably at the very moment when they are telling you they are “pauvres petits miserables,” or “petits malheureux, qui n’ont ni pere ni mere.”  With all this they are excellent flatterers.  An Englishman is sure to be “milord,” and a lady to be “ma belle duchesse,” or “ma belle princesse.”  They will try too to please you by “vivent les Anglais, vive Louis dix-huit.”  In 1814 and 1815, I remember the cry used commonly to be “vive Napoleon,” but they have now learned better; and, in truth, they had no reason to bear attachment to the ex-emperor, an early maxim of whose policy it was to rid the face of the country of this description of persons, for which purpose he established workhouses, or depots de mendicite, in each department, and his gendarmes were directed to proceed in the most summary manner, by conveying every mendicant and vagrant to these receptacles, without listening to any excuse, or granting any delay.  He had no clear idea of the necessity of the gentle formalities of a summons, and a pass under his worship’s hand and seal.  And, without entering into the elaborate researches respecting the original habitat of a mumper, which are required by the English law, he thought that pauperism could be sufficiently protected by consigning the specimen to the nearest cabinet.  The simple and rigorous plan of Napoleon was conformable to the nature of his government, and it effectually answered the purpose.  The day, therefore, of his exile to Elba was a Beggar’s Opera throughout France; and they have kept up the jubilee to the present hour, and seem likely to persist in maintaining it.

Footnotes: 

[41] Goube, Histoire de la Normandie, III. p. 127.

[42] “Francois premier, revenant vainqueur de la bataille de Marignan en 1515, crut devoir profiter de la situation avantageuse de la Crique; il concut le dessin de l’agrandir et d’en faire une place de guerre importante.  Ce prince avoit pris les interets du jeune Roi d’Ecosse, Jacques V, et ce fut pour se fortifier contre les Anglais qu’il forma la resolution de leur opposer cette barriere.  Pour conduire l’entreprise il jetta les yeux sur un Gentilhomme nomme Guion le Roi, Seigneur de Chillon, Vice-Amiral, et Capitaine de Honfleur, et la premiere pierre fut posee en 1516.”—­Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 195.

[43] Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 200.

[44] See Cotman’s Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, t. 12.—­There is also a general view of the church, and of some of the monastic buildings from the lithographic press of the Comte de Lasteyrie.