In
Those Which Are Well Furnished, You See Pier-Glasses And Marble
Slabs; But The Chairs Are Either Paultry Things, Made With Straw
Bottoms, Which Cost About A Shilling A-Piece, Or Old-Fashioned,
High-Backed Seats Of Needle-Work, Stuffed, Very Clumsy And
Incommodious.
The tables are square fir boards, that stand on
edge in a corner, except when they are used, and then they are
set upon cross legs that open and shut occasionally.
The king of
France dines off a board of this kind. Here is plenty of table-linen
however. The poorest tradesman in Boulogne has a napkin on
every cover, and silver forks with four prongs, which are used
with the right hand, there being very little occasion for knives;
for the meat is boiled or roasted to rags. The French beds are so
high, that sometimes one is obliged to mount them by the help of
steps; and this is also the case in Flanders. They very seldom
use feather-beds; but they lie upon a paillasse, or bag of straw,
over which are laid two, and sometimes three mattrasses. Their
testers are high and old-fashioned, and their curtains generally
of thin bays, red, or green, laced with taudry yellow, in
imitation of gold. In some houses, however, one meets with
furniture of stamped linen; but there is no such thing as a
carpet to be seen, and the floors are in a very dirty condition.
They have not even the implements of cleanliness in this country.
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