[196] At Domremi, in Lorraine.

[197] When Desnoyers was over here, in 1819, he unequivocally expressed his
    rapture about our antiquarian engravings—­especially of Gothic
    churches.  Mr. Wild’s Lincoln Cathedral produced a succession of
    ecstatic remarks.  “When your fine engravings of this kind come over to
    Paris we get little committees to sit upon them”—­observed Desnoyers
    to an engraver—­who communicated the fact to the author.

[198] [The experience of ten years has confirmed THE TRUTH of the above
    remark.]

[199] [Not so now!  Mahogany, according to M. Crapelet, is every where at
    Paris, and at the lowest prices.]

LETTER XII.

PARIS TO STRASBOURG.

Hotel de l’Esprit, Strasbourg, July 20, 1818.

I can hardly describe to you the gratification I felt on quitting the “trein-trein".of Paris for the long, and upon the whole interesting, journey to the place whence I date this despatch.  My love of rural sights, and of rural enjoyments of almost every kind, has been only equalled by my admiration of the stupendous Cathedral of this celebrated city.  But not a word about the city of Strasbourg itself, for the present.  My description, both of that and of its curiosities, will be properly reserved for another letter; when I shall necessarily have had more leisure and fitter opportunities for the execution of the task.  On the eleventh of this month, precisely at ten o’clock, the rattling of the hoofs of two lusty post horses—­together with the cracking of an experimental flourish or two of the postilion’s whip—­were heard in the court-yard of the Hotel des Colonies.  Nothing can exceed the punctuality of the Poste Royale in the attendance of the horses at the precise hour of ordering them.  Travellers, and especially those from our own country, are not quite so punctual in availing themselves of this regularity; but if you keep the horses for the better part of an hour before you start, you must pay something extra for your tardiness.  Of all people, the English are likely to receive the most useful lesson from this wholesome regulation.  By a quarter past ten, Mr. Lewis and myself having mounted our voiture, and given the signal for departure, received the “derniers adieux” of Madame the hostess, and of the whole corps of attendants.  On leaving the gates of the hotel, the postilion put forth all his energies in sundry loud smackings of his whip; and as we went at a cautious pace through the narrower streets, towards the Barriers of St. Martin, I could not but think, with inward satisfaction, that, on visiting and leaving a city, so renowned as Paris, for the first time, I had gleaned more intellectual fruit than I had presumed to hope for; and that I had made acquaintances which might probably ripen into a long and steady friendship.  In short, my own memoranda, together with the drawings of Messrs. Lewis and Coeure, were results, which convinced me that my time had not been mispent, and that my objects of research were not quite undeserving of being recorded.  Few reflections give one so much pleasure, on leaving, a city—­where there are so many thousand temptations to abuse time and to destroy character.