416 MURAT ON AMERICA. 



notice of M. Murat. There is no rattling of carriages, he says ; the 

 need of them being superseded by the admirable cleanness of the streets. 

 There is no broadway which he thinks only inferior to Regent- Street, 

 to serve as a rallying point for the beau monde of the Quaker city. 

 Chesnut-Street, however, is becoming an exception to the general same- 

 ness ; and Carey and Lea's Library, about mid-day, is the place to see 

 the sad-coloured gaiety of Philadelphia. In the society of the Pennsyl- 

 vanian capital, however, there is a greater show of learning than in that 

 of New York. The professors of the university give the tone to it, and 

 naturally bring with them a certain degree of pedantry. The periodical 

 meetings of the savaris of Philadelphia are well known to all European 

 travellers who take the trouble to provide themselves with the necessary 

 letters of introduction. They take place, on stated days, at the houses 

 of the leading members of this class of society, where the entertainment 

 consists of conversation on science, literature, and art, without excluding 

 an occasional infusion of politics, and regularly terminates with a sup- 

 per ; the whole conveying an idea, to a stranger, of the intelligence and 

 urbanity of the inhabitants. 



It is of Charleston, however, that M. Murat speaks with the greatest 

 zest. It is there, he says, that you enjoy what he calls the luxury of 

 American society, consisting of planters, lawyers, and physicians. The 

 manners of the South, he says, are unexceptionable; the minds of the 

 inhabitants are highly cultivated, and conversation turns to a thousand 

 topics with ease, facility, and grace. The affectation of frivolity and of 

 foreign manners, is as completely banished, as that of pedantry and reli- 

 gious hypocrisy ; all is intellectual, rational, and virtuous. Charleston 

 is the ordinary residence of many of the most distinguished statesmen 

 of the Union ; and he tells us that they do not scruple to explain their 

 views to their fellow citizens, when they meet together in society. 



In Virginia, what is called good society, is more spread over the whole 

 surface of the state than in other parts of the Union, in consequence of 

 the want of a great capital, to form a point of attraction, and to give it 

 an exclusive tone. Virginian hospitality is proverbial, even in America, 

 and M. Murat assures us that the character has been justly acquired. 

 The town of Richmond, he says, is more like Charleston than any other 

 of the American cities ; by which, of course, he means to speak of its 

 society in terms of commendation. 



New Orleans, he tells us, presents a complete contrast to all the other 

 cities of the Union. Here, he says, there is no education or intelligence, 

 and, of course, no conversation, learned, literary, or intellectual. There 

 are, he says, but three booksellers in a town containing sixty thousand 

 inhabitants, and their stores are filled with the trash and the refuse of 

 French literature. But if they do not talk, they eat, dance, make love, 

 and play. Les bals de quarteronnes, he describes as quite peculiar to 

 New Orleans, the free women of colour being admitted to have the 

 honour of dancing with their lords, the whites, while men of the same 

 shade are rigorously excluded. It is a most extraordinary spectacle to 

 see several hundred young women, all extremely well dressed and hand- 

 some, and of every variety of tint, from that of cafe a la creme, to the 

 most delicate blonde, assembled in the magnificent drawing-rooms of 

 New Orleans, to exhibit their venal graces to the fashionable society of 

 that dissipated and voluptuous city. The gaming-houses of New Or- 

 leans are also numerous, and have become the ruin of many of the young 



