LETTER LXIII.

MY DEAR E

IF I could conduct you home wards with me from the Tuileries to the Rue de la Ferne des Mathurins, you would find us comfortably lodged in as much retirement from the noise and bustle of the city, as if we were in a country town of NewEngland. Our house is small, but convenient; and with the kitchen and the porter's lodge, and the porte cochere, and the Court yard, has the appearance of a Hotel in miniature. The office of porter, at a publick hotel, is generally filled by some inferiour tradesman, who can by pulling a string, raise the bolt without moving from his seat, or his shopboard; but in private houses he is a servant so stationed as to attend the gate, and whose business it is to sweep out the rooms and staircase, and to rub the floors every morning; they are so frequently from Switzerland, that the words Porter and Swiss, are become synonymous; ours, however, is a Savoyard, who having wandered at a very early age from his native mountains, and swept chimnies, and cleaned shoes, and gone of errands, and practised all the various modes of living, which his nation seems in possession of in Paris, is now settled down for life as a porter, contented to get his victuals, and about twelve pounds a year. Our coachman is a man advanced in life, with a very grave countenance, and a head nicely powdered. He would

not upon any account mount the coachbox of a morning, before two enormous curls, which he wears at the sides, were completely arranged, and he declared to me upon his veracity, that this article of his toilette cost him full sixty sous a quarter. Our cook also must be introduced to your acquaintance; not Dame Leonarda of immortal memory, nor Dame Jacintha whose ragouts were so perfect, understood the business of the kitchen better, but she has other talents which would have qualified her for a distinguished place in the kitchen of the Sicilian Nobleman, and we find ourselves obliged to overlook her accounts very regularly every day. We have a valet de place also, who has all the merit those sort of people ever have; he has his favourites among the tradesmen, and levies, I presume, a small contribution at our expense. A water carrier keeps the house well supplied with water, and since the invention of filtrating fountains, the Seine water is as good as that of your best springs at the mountains. A part of Paris is supplied with this necessary of life by the powers of the steam engine of Chailot, the practicability of which was a cause of discussion for the wits of Paris, for Mirabeau and Beaumarchais among the rest, till their attention was called off to objects which have not been productive of such general utility. There is a great deal yet to be described on the North side of the river; all the places of publick amusement are there, and of these I must give you some account; but we will first make an excursion to the other side, at the South

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Eastern extremity of the city. Let me request you therefore to return to your plan of Paris, and to draw a line, or stretch a thread, from the Southern extremity of the Tuileries, to the Luxembourg, which you will easily find; a continuation of the line will strike the Rue St. Jaques, at the English Benedictines; another, at an obtuse angle, will carry you to the Gobelin manufactory, hence the Rue St. Marcel will conduct you to the ancient and now obscure church of St. Medard, and you will afterwards pass along the Rue Neuve d'Orleans, to the Garden of Plants. From the Garden of Plants we will return homewards by the Rue St. Victor, and the place Maubert, and across the island of the city, where the ancient palace of Justice, on the one side, and the Metropolitan church of Notre Dame, on the other, will deserve our attention as we pass. Having crossed to the Quai Voltaire, the line soon brings you to the Rue des Petits Augustins, and shortly after to the ancient abbey of that name. This street, des Petits Augustins, was formerly a canal, that divided the Scholar's meadow, where Sully describes himself as having exposed his life in so careless a manner, after the death of Madame de Rosny; at the upper end of it stands the former convent of Augustin monks, where all the monuments and other pieces of ornamental sculpture, which could be saved from the ruin of the churches during the madness of the revolution, have been deposited; these curious relicks of ancient art, and memorials of distinguished persons, are here arranged in different apartments,

according to their respective antiquity, and one has the satisfaction to trace the progress of sculpture through the course of many succeeding centuries. When the tombs at St. Dennis were opened, the pretence was to make use of the leaden coffins, which had been accumulated there in so many ages, for the purpose of war, but the chief object of the wretches who then governed, was to lower the Regal Character in the estimation of the nation by this last insult. Fortunately, with all their desire to destroy, the greater part of the monuments were preserved, and are now here; the intrinsick merit of the sculpture, in those pieces which were meant to represent the earlier kings, is very small indeed. Clovis, Chilperic, and Clotaire, are so many blocks of mishapen stone, in which there is at best but a rude imitation of the human figure; it was this last, who, as he felt himself dying, was heard to exclaim, "And who is this mighty God of Heaven, that can at his pleasure, remove the greatest monarch upon earth?" For so this barbarian supposed himself. The statue of St. Louis, however, is somewhat better; it is formed, indeed, like the others, of ordinary stone, and the features are considerably defaced, but in this rude representation, and after a lapse of six centuries, there is an air of goodness and simplicity, and more of countenance, than I could ever discover in many of the master-pieces of Grecian art. The leaden saint upon his hat, and the air of cunning and malignity, are expressive of Louis XI.; the guards of this wretched tyrant watching day and night over his person, and the

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walls of his castle covered with iron spikes, and his looking about so anxiously in his last moments for some earthly mediator between heaven and himself, would prevent any succeeding monarch, we might suppose, from giving way to those suspicions, and to that implacable resentment, which rendered the latter part of the reign of Louis so fatal to his subjects; but man will not be benefited by the experience of others. The face of Louis XII. is that of an emaciated old man, but I considered it with great attention and respect; it was he who said, upon being told that the Parisians ridiculed his mode of living, I had rather they should laugh at my parsimony and simplicity, than be made to weep by my oppression and tyranny. The historian of his life says, he might have lived many years longer, had he not in order to please his young wife, the beautiful Mary of England, so materially altered his mode of living. He had always been accustomed to dine at eight; but he now dined at noon, and instead of going to bed at the good old hour of six, he would frequently sit up till near midnight. It would lead us frequently into errour, I know, to apply the system of Lavater upon every occasion, but Richelieu, though supported by Religion, and with Science weeping at his feet, and in the attitude of a dying man, discovers a proud and domineering spirit in his countenance, while there is something yielding and compliant in the air and attitude of his successor Mazarin. You will see in Voltaire's Louis XIV. what immense sums of money this last left behind him; one of his modes of