the monsters with fangs, red hair, and Glengarry caps, of Cham, and Dore, and Bertall, and the female sticks with ringlets who pass in the terra-cotta show of the Palais Royal for our countrywomen, have long ago ceased to warm my indignation.  All I can say now is, that the artists and modellers have not travelled.  They have studied the strange British apparitions which disfigure the Boulevard des Italiens in the autumn, their knowledge of our race is limited to the unfortunate selection of specimens who strut about their streets, and—­according to their light—­they are not guilty of outrageous exaggeration.  I venture to assert that an Englishman will meet more unpleasant samples of his countrymen and countrywomen in an August day’s walk in Paris, than he will come across during a month in London.  To begin with, we English treat Paris as though it were a back garden, in which a person may lounge in his old clothes, or indulge his fancy for the ugly and slovenly.  Why, on broiling days, men and women should sally forth from their hotel with a travelling-bag and an opera-glass slung about their shoulders, passes my comprehension.  Conceive the condition of mind of that man who imagines that he is an impressive presence when he is patrolling the Rue de la Paix with an alpenstock in his hand!  At home we are a plain, well-dressed, well-behaved people, fully up in Art and Letters—­that is, among our educated classes, to any other nation—­in most elegant studies before all; but our travellers in France and Switzerland slander us, and the “Paris in 10 hours” system has lowered Frenchmen’s estimate of the national character.  The Exhibition of 1867, far from promoting the brotherhood of the peoples, and hinting to the soldier that his vocation was coming to an end, spread a dislike of Englishmen through Paris.  It attracted rough men from the North, and ill-bred men from the South, whose swagger, and noise, and unceremonious manners in cafes and restaurants chafed the polite Frenchman.  They could not bring themselves to salute the dame de comptoir, they were loud at the table d’hote and commanding in their airs to the waiter.  In brief, the English mass jarred upon their neighbours; and Frenchmen went the length of saying that the two peoples—­like relatives—­would remain better friends apart.  The disadvantage is, beyond doubt, with us; since the froissement was produced by the British lack of that suavity which the French cultivate—­and which may be hollow, but is pleasant, and oils the wheels of life.

[Illustration:  Robinson Crusoe and Friday.

From French designs.]