"Every
Object Seems To Have Shrunk In Its Dimensions Since I Was Last In
Paris." Smollett Was An Older Man By Fifteen Years Since He
Visited The French Capital In The First Flush Of His Success As
An Author.
The dirt and gloom of French apartments, even at
Versailles, offend his English standard of comfort.
"After all,
it is in England only where we must look for cheerful apartments,
gay furniture, neatness, and convenience. There is a strange
incongruity in the French genius. With all their volatility,
prattle, and fondness for bons mots they delight in a species of
drawling, melancholy, church music. Their most favourite dramatic
pieces are almost without incident, and the dialogue of their
comedies consists of moral insipid apophthegms, entirely
destitute of wit or repartee." While amusing himself with the
sights of Paris, Smollett drew up that caustic delineation of the
French character which as a study in calculated depreciation has
rarely been surpassed. He conceives the Frenchman entirely as a
petit-maitre, and his view, though far removed from
Chesterfield's, is not incompatible with that of many of his
cleverest contemporaries, including Sterne. He conceives of the
typical Frenchman as regulating his life in accordance with the
claims of impertinent curiosity and foppery, gallantry and
gluttony. Thus:
"If a Frenchman is capable of real friendship, it must certainly
be the most disagreeable present he can possibly make to a man
of a true English character. You know, madam, we are naturally
taciturn, soon tired of impertinence, and much subject to fits of
disgust.
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