The avenue here, which leads to one of the greatest objects in the nation, is most worthy of that object’s dignity indeed:  the marriage of two rivers, which having their sources at a prodigious distance from each other, meet here, and together roll their beneficial tribute to the sea.  Howell’s remark, “That the Saone resembles a Spaniard in the slowness of its current, and that the Rhone is emblematic of French rapidity,” cannot be kept a moment out of one’s head:  it is equally observable, that the junction adds little in appearance to their strength and grandeur, and that each makes a better figure separate than united.

La Montagne d’Or is a lovely hill above the town, and I am told that many English families reside upon it, but we have no time to make minute enquiries.  L’Hotel de la Croix de Malthe affords excellent accommodations within, and a delightful prospect without.  The Baths too have attracted my notice much, and will, I hope, repair my strength, so as to make me no troublesome fellow-traveller.  How little do those ladies consult their own interest, who make impatience of petty inconveniences their best supplement for conversation!—­fancy themselves more important as less contented; and imagine all delicacy to consist in the difficulty of being pleased!  Surely a dip in this delightful river will restore my health, and enable me to pass the mountains, of which our present companions give me a very formidable account.

The manufacturers here, at Lyons, deserve a volume, and I shall scarcely give them a page; though nothing I ever saw at London or Paris can compare with the beauty of these velvets, or with the art necessary to produce such an effect, while the wrong side is smooth, not struck through.  The hangings for the Empress of Russia’s bed-chamber are wonderfully executed; the design elegant, the colouring brilliant:  A screen too for the Grand Signor is finely finished here; he would, I trust, have been contented with magnificence in the choice of his furniture, but Mr. Pernon has added taste to it, and contrived in appearance to sink an urn or vase of crimson velvet in a back ground of gold tissue with surprising ingenuity.

It is observable, that the further people advance in elegance, the less they value splendour; distinction being at last the positive thing which mortals elevated above competency naturally pant after.  Necessity must first be supplied we know, convenience then requires to be contented; but as soon as men can find means after that period to make themselves eminent for taste, they learn to despise those paltry distinctions which riches alone can bestow.