and not in a first-rate situation, six sous a day is sufficient, but in most hotels about the fashionable quarters half a franc is the usual sum expected; for this your bed is made, your boots and shoes cleaned, as also your room, and your clothes brushed; they likewise take in messages or letters, and answer all enquiries respecting you, direct the visiters to your apartment, etc., but if you send them out anywhere, no matter how short the distance, they always charge at least ten sous for it; it is one of the dearest things I know in France, that of charging for every little errand or commission.

At some of the hotels there are commissioners who make offers of their services, to conduct strangers to different shops or warehouses, for the purpose of making their purchases, but too much reliance must not be placed on those gentry, as they often exact contributions from the shopkeepers for bringing travellers to their shops, when they naturally must charge so much the more upon the goods in order to pay the commissioner.

Tradesmen from London particularly are often misled in that manner, but in proceeding to such establishments as those I have stated, which are respectable wholesale houses, such as Messrs. Bellart, Louis, Delcambre, for lace, ribband, and silk, 2ter Rue Choiseul, etc., they will never be deceived; I will also add another establishment which has existed for many years and always conducted their business on equitable terms, being that of M. Langlais-Quignolot, No. 10, Rue Chapon, where he executes orders for London on a most extensive scale for net gloves, purses and reticules.  He lives in the neighbourhood where many of the wholesale houses are situated, and would willingly inform any stranger of the most respectable in the different branches required.  The different articles to be seen at M. Langlais’ warehouse are got up in a most superior style and at prices so reasonable, that it is quite surprising when compared to the charges made for the same goods in London, where undoubtedly they have duty and carriage to pay.  He has lately brought into vogue some most beautiful little purses called Rebecca, being exactly in the form of the pitcher with which she is represented at the well; their appearance is most ornamental, and although very small they distend so as to hold as much as most ladies would like to lose in an evening at cards.  M. Langlais has already sent over numbers to London, which must now be making their appearance in Regent Street, but I recommend my countrywomen when at Paris to pay him a visit themselves, as he does not refuse a retail customer although his is a wholesale house; he has a most extensive assortment of all varieties of purses and net gloves and reticules, from which numbers of shops in Paris and London are supplied, and of course being the fountain head the articles may be procured on advantageous terms of M. Langlais.