It is a happy circumstance for the French, that their pride does not consist in a desire to get out of their station, but an extreme anxiety to exaggerate the importance of the station in which they are placed; a cook, for example, has the most exalted idea of the art of cookery, and wishes to impress everyone with the same idea of its high importance, and all his ambition is to be considered a cook of the first-rate talent.  In England it is different, one of the great objects with a tradesman is the hope, that by making his fortune he shall be enabled to get out of his class and take a higher walk in society.  For this purpose they bring their sons up to the liberal professions, and often retire into the country at a distance from London, where they flatter themselves that the circumstance of their having been in business may not travel; their plan seldom succeeds, but has in several instances when they have come over to France, as being rich, appearing respectable, and their children highly educated, they have obtained the entree to French society, which has ultimately led to that of the English.  I remember one instance of a hatter marrying his five daughters to persons of the higher classes, three to English and two to French, who now with their father have that position in society, into which at one period he never could have dreamed of entering; had they remained in England, they would have had but little chance of emerging from their original station, even with the aid of all their wealth.

Street scenes often afford amusing exhibitions of natural characteristics; I remember one which I witnessed, which developed a feeling truly French; two common-looking men had been disputing for some time, when one upbraided the other with want of delicacy and not having a nice sense of honour, but finding his reproaches made but little impression upon the accused, at last said, “As I see you are destitute of any mental susceptibility, I must try if you have any bodily feeling, and thrash you as I would a dog or any other brute.”  So saying, he advanced to put his threat into execution, but the assailed proving far the strongest, soon overcame the assailant and laid him prostrate; rising from the ground, he regarded the conqueror with a dignified air, and said, “Yes! you have the physical force, but I have the force of reason,” and with a flourish of the head he strutted off with as triumphant a demeanour as if he had vanquished a host of enemies.

The French are exceedingly fond of moralizing; a few days before the Revolution occurred, whilst a man was driving me through the Place de la Concorde, I observed a scaffolding in the middle, and asked what it was for, and having informed me that it was for the purpose of erecting a statue of Louis the Sixteenth, being the spot in which he was beheaded, he exclaimed, “What an absurdity! but those Bourbons are incorrigible; would it not be much better to let such events as those