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. The first are extremely
elegant, if not too much ornamented, the last are very shabby and
disagreeable. Nothing gives me such chagrin, as the necessity I
am under to hire a valet de place, as my own servant does not
speak the language. You cannot conceive with what eagerness and
dexterity those rascally valets exert themselves in pillaging
strangers. There is always one ready in waiting on your arrival,
who begins by assisting your own servant to unload your baggage,
and interests himself in your affairs with such artful
officiousness, that you will find it difficult to shake him off,
even though you are determined beforehand against hiring any such
domestic. He produces recommendations from his former masters,
and the people of the house vouch for his honesty.
The truth is, those fellows are very handy, useful, and obliging;
and so far honest, that they will not steal in the usual way. You
may safely trust one of them to bring you a hundred loui'dores
from your banker; but they fleece you without mercy in every
other article of expence. They lay all your tradesmen under
contribution; your taylor, barber, mantua-maker, milliner,
perfumer, shoe-maker, mercer, jeweller, hatter, traiteur, and
wine-merchant:
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