Cloth And Silk Are The Staple Manufactures Of Lyons, Particularly The
Latter; I Accompanied My Friend Mr M - - To See
His fabrique of silk which
is of considerable extent and importance, and everything appeared to me, as
far as one
Totally ignorant of the business and its process could judge,
admirably regulated and rapid in its execution. The tournure of the
grisettes of Lyons is very striking and they possess completely the
grata protervitas, the vultus nimium lubricus aspici which Horace so
much admires in Glycera.
I visited both the theatres here, viz.: the Grand Theatre, situated near
the Hotel de Ville, and the smaller one called the Theatre des
Celestins. At the former was some good dancing, and at the latter I was
engaged in a conversation which I cannot forbear citing as it will serve to
show the dislike the people have to the feudal system and the dread they
have of its re-establishment, tho' they can know nothing about it except by
tradition. The piece performed was called Le petit Poucet (Tom Thumb and
the Ogre); but I missed my old acquaintance the Ogre and his seven-league
boots of Mother Goose, and found that in this melodrama he was transformed
into a tyrannical and capricious Seigneur Feodal. There was a very pretty
young lady about 16 years of age accompanied by her father in the same box
with me, and I observed to her, "Ou est donc l'Ogre? il parait que l'on en
a fait un Seigneur feodal." "Oui, monsieur (she replied), et avec raison,
car ils etaient bien les Ogres de ce temps la." I entered into a long
conversation with my fair neighbour and found her well informed and well
educated, with great good sense and knowledge of the world far beyond her
years.
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