When I met him in London the following year, the account which he gave me of his French tour, was, ’Sir, I have seen all the visibilities of Paris, and around it; but to have formed an acquaintance with the people there, would have required more time than I could stay.  I was just beginning to creep into acquaintance by means of Colonel Drumgold, a very high man, Sir, head of L’Ecole Militaire, a most complete character, for he had first been a professor of rhetorick, and then became a soldier.  And, Sir, I was very kindly treated by the English Benedictines, and have a cell appropriated to me in their convent.’

He observed, ’The great in France live very magnificently, but the rest very miserably.  There is no happy middle state as in England.  The shops of Paris are mean; the meat in the markets is such as would be sent to a gaol in England:  and Mr. Thrale justly observed, that the cookery of the French was forced upon them by necessity; for they could not eat their meat, unless they added some taste to it.  The French are an indelicate people; they will spit upon any place.  At Madame ------’s, a literary lady of rank, the footman took the sugar in his fingers, and threw it into my coffee.  I was going to put it aside; but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e’en tasted Tom’s fingers.  The same lady would needs make tea a l’Angloise.  The spout of the tea-pot did not pour freely; she had the footman blow into it.  France is worse than Scotland in every thing but climate.  Nature has done more for the French; but they have done less for themselves than the Scotch have done.’

It happened that Foote was at Paris at the same time with Dr. Johnson, and his description of my friend while there, was abundantly ludicrous.  He told me, that the French were quite astonished at his figure and manner, and at his dress, which he obstinately continued exactly as in London;—­his brown clothes, black stockings, and plain shirt.  He mentioned, that an Irish gentleman said to Johnson, ’Sir, you have not seen the best French players.’  Johnson.  ’Players, Sir!  I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.’—­’But, Sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?’ Johnson.  ’Yes, Sir, as some dogs dance better than others.’

While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin.  It was a maxim with him that a man should not let himself down, by speaking a language which he speaks imperfectly.  Indeed, we must have often observed how inferiour, how much like a child a man appears, who speaks a broken tongue.  When Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the dinners of the Royal Academy, presented him to a Frenchman of great distinction, he would not deign to speak French, but talked Latin, though his Excellency did not understand it, owing, perhaps, to Johnson’s English pronunciation:  yet upon another occasion he was observed to speak French to a Frenchman of high rank, who spoke English; and being asked the reason, with some expression of surprise,—­he answered, ’because I think my French is as good as his English.’  Though Johnson understood French perfectly, he could not speak it readily, as I have observed at his first interview with General Pauli, in 1769; yet he wrote it, I imagine, pretty well.