There Are Different Rooms For The Different Sexes:
The
accommodations are good, and the expence is a trifle.
The
tapestry of the Gobelins is brought to an amazing degree of
perfection; and I am surprised that this furniture is not more in
fashion among the great, who alone are able to purchase it. It
would be a most elegant and magnificent ornament, which would
always nobly distinguish their apartments from those, of an
inferior rank; and in this they would run no risk of being
rivalled by the bourgeois. At the village of Chaillot, in the
neighbourhood of Paris, they make beautiful carpets and screen-work;
and this is the more extraordinary, as there are hardly any
carpets used in this kingdom. In almost all the lodging-houses,
the floors are of brick, and have no other kind of cleaning, than
that of being sprinkled with water, and swept once a day. These
brick floors, the stone stairs, the want of wainscotting in the
rooms, and the thick party-walls of stone, are, however, good
preservatives against fire, which seldom does any damage in this
city. Instead of wainscotting, the walls are covered with
tapestry or damask. The beds in general are very good, and well
ornamented, with testers and curtains.
Twenty years ago the river Seine, within a mile of Paris, was as
solitary as if it had run through a desert. At present the banks
of it are adorned with a number of elegant houses and
plantations, as far as Marli.
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