In General,
You Are Served With The Appearance Of The Most Mortifying
Indifference, At The Very Time They Are Laying Schemes For
Fleecing You Of Your Money.
It is a very odd contrast between
France and England; in the former all the people are complaisant
but the publicans; in the latter there is hardly any complaisance
but among the publicans.
When I said all the people in France, I
ought also to except those vermin who examine the baggage of
travellers in different parts of the kingdom. Although our
portmanteaus were sealed with lead, and we were provided
with a passe-avant from the douane, our coach was searched
at the gate of Paris by which we entered; and the women were
obliged to get out, and stand in the open street, till this
operation was performed.
I had desired a friend to provide lodgings for me at Paris, in
the Fauxbourg St. Germain; and accordingly we found ourselves
accommodated at the Hotel de Montmorency, with a first floor,
which costs me ten livres a day. I should have put up with it had
it been less polite; but as I have only a few days to stay in
this place, and some visits to receive, I am not sorry that my
friend has exceeded his commission. I have been guilty of another
piece of extravagance in hiring a carosse de remise, for which I
pay twelve livres a day. Besides the article of visiting, I could
not leave Paris, without carrying my wife and the girls to see
the most remarkable places in and about this capital, such as the
Luxemburg, the Palais-Royal, the Thuilleries, the Louvre, the
Invalids, the Gobelins, &c. together with Versailles, Trianon,
Marli, Meudon, and Choissi; and therefore, I thought the
difference in point of expence would not be great, between a
carosse de remise and a hackney coach.
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