The same want of common-sense, cleanliness, and convenience—­is visible in nearly the whole of the French menage.  Again, in the streets—­their cabriolet drivers and hackney coachmen are sometimes the most furious of their tribe.  I rescued, the other day, an old and respectable gentleman—­ with the cross of St. Louis appendant to his button-hole—­from a situation, in which, but for such a rescue, he must have been absolutely knocked down and rode over.  He shook his cane at the offender; and, thanking me very heartily for my protection, observed, “these rascals improve daily in their studied insult of all good Frenchmen.”  The want of trottoirs is a serious and even absurd want; as it might be so readily supplied.  Their carts are obviously ill-constructed, and especially in the caps of the wheels; which, in a narrow street—­as those of Paris usually are—­unnecessarily occupy a foot of room, where scarcely an inch can be spared.  The rubbish piled against the posts, in different parts of the street, is as disgusting as it is obviously inconvenient.  A police “ordonnance” would obviate all this in twenty-four hours.

Yet in many important respects the Parisian multitude read a lesson to ourselves.  In their public places of resort, the French are wonderfully decorous; and along the streets, no lady is insulted by the impudence of either sex.  You are sure to walk in peace, if you conduct yourself peaceably.  I had intended to say a word upon morals:  and religion; but the subject, while it is of the highest moment, is beyond the reach of a traveller whose stay is necessarily short, and whose occupations, upon the whole, have been confined rather among the dead than the living.

Farewell, therefore, to PARIS.  I have purchased a very commodious travelling carriage; to which a pair of post-horses will be attached in a couple of days—­and then, for upwards of three hundred miles of journey—­towards STRASBOURG!  No schoolboy ever longed for a holiday more ardently than I do for the relaxation which this journey will afford me.  A thousand hearty farewells!

[191] [The work is now perfect in 3 volumes.]

[192] [I here annex a fac-simile of his autograph from the foot of the
    account for these drawings.]

    [Illustration]

[193] Then, Louis XVIII.

[194] ["Sir T. Lawrence, who painted the portrait of the late Duke de
    Richlieu, which was seen at the last exhibition, is undoubtedly of the
    first class of British Portrait painters; but, according to Mr.
    Dibdin’s judgment, many artists would have preferred to have sided
    with our Gerard.”  CRAPELET. vol. iv. 220.  I confess I do not
    understand this reasoning:  nor perhaps will my readers.]

[195] [Here, Mons. Crapelet drily and pithily says, “Translated from the
    English.”  What then?  Can there be the smallest shadow of doubt about
    the truth of the above assertion?  None—­with Posterity.]