MANIA FOR DANCING IN PARIS. 



189 



would feel and proclaim the truth, This people 

 is destroyed for lack of knowledge. &quot; The same 

 gentleman shows, that this profanation is chiefly 

 occasioned by &quot; the destitution of Scriptual in 

 formation which exists in France,&quot; which the 

 following facts, among many others that came 

 under his own observation, tend to illustrate. 



&quot;On the road to M on a market-day, I 



stopped about a dozen persons, some poor, others 

 of the better classes, and showing them the New 

 Testament, begged them to inform me if they 

 possessed it. With a single exception, they all 



replied in the negative. In the town of M 



I entered, with the same inquiry, many of the 

 most respectable shops. Only one individual 

 among thoir occupiers was the owner of a New 

 Testament. One gentleman, who, during a 

 week, dined with me at my inn, and who avow 

 ed himself a deist and a materialist, said that he 

 had not seen a Testament for many years. In 

 deed, I doubted whether he had ever read it ; for, 

 on my presenting one to him, he asked if it con 

 tained an account of the creation. A journey 

 man bookbinder, having expressed a wish to 

 obtain this precious book, remarked, on receiving 

 it, in perfect ignorance of its divine authority, 

 that he dared to say it was a very fine work. 1 

 A student in a university, about 20 years of age, 

 told me, that although he had seen the Vulgate 

 (Latin) version of the New Testament, he had 

 never met with it in a French translation. A 

 young woman, who professed to have a Bible, 

 produced instead of it a Catholic Abridgment of 

 the Scriptures, garbled in many important por 

 tions, and interlarded with the comments of the 

 Fathers.&quot; 



Such facts afford a striking evidence of the 

 hostility of the Roman Catholic clergy in 

 France to the circulation of the Scriptures, and 

 the enlightening of the minds of the community 

 in the knowledge of Divine truths ; and therefore 

 it is no wonder that Infidelity, Materialism, and 

 immoral ity, should very generally prevail. &quot; Even 

 among the Protestants,&quot; says the same writer, 

 &quot; a large number of their ministers are worldly 

 men, frequenting, as a pious lady assured me, 

 the chase, the dance, and the billiard table. 1 

 As to the public worship of God, the case is 

 equally deplorable. In two large towns, and a 

 population of 25,000, 1 found no Protestant sanc 

 tuary. In a third town, containing about 7000 

 inhabitants, there was an English Episcopal 

 chapel for the British residents, but no French 

 Protestant service. At a fourth, in which there 

 was a Protestant church, the minister, who sup 

 plied four other places, preached one Sabbath in 

 five, weeks.&quot; 



The mania for dancing, which pervades all 

 classes and all ages, is another characteristic of 

 the peoole of Paris, of which some idea may be 

 formed irom the following extract from a French 

 public Journal, dated August 2, 1804 : The 



danso-mania of both sexes seems rather to in 

 crease than decrease with the warm weather. 

 Sixty balls were advertised for last Sunday ; and 

 for to-morrow sixty-nine are announced. Any 

 person walking in the Elysian fields, or on the 

 Boulevards, may be convinced that these temples 

 of pleasure are not without worshippers. Besides 

 these, in our own walks last Sunday, we counted 

 no less than twenty-two gardens not advertised, 

 where there was fiddling and dancing. Indeed, 

 this pleasure is tempting, because it is very cheap. 

 For a bottle of beer, which costs 6 sous (3d.,) 

 and 2 sous (Id.,) to the fiddler, a husband and 

 wife, with their children, may amuse themselves 

 from three o clock in the afternoon till eleven 

 o clock at night. As this exercise both diverts 

 the mind and strengthens the body, and as Sun 

 day is the only day of the week which the most 

 numerous classes of people can dispose of, with 

 out injury to themselves or the state, government 

 encourages, as much as possible, ihese innocent 

 amusements on that day. In the garden of Chau- 

 mievre, on the Boulevard Neuf, we observed, in 

 the same quadrilles, last Sunday, four genera 

 tions, the great grandsire dancing with his great- 

 great granddaughter, and the great-grandmamma 

 dancing with her great-great-grandson. It was 

 a satisfaction impossible to be expressed, to see 

 persons of so many different ages, all enjoying the 

 same pleasures for the present, not remembering 

 past misfortunes, nor apprehending future ones. 

 The grave seemed equally distant from the girl 

 often years old, and from her great-grandmamma 

 of seventy years, and from the boy that had not 

 seen three lustres, as from the great grandsire 

 reaching nearly fourscore years. In another 

 quadrille, were four lovers dancing with their 

 mistresses. There, again, nothing was observed 

 but an emulation who should enjoy the present 

 moment. Not an idea of the past, or of time 

 to come, clouded their thoughts ; in a few words, 

 they were perfectly happy. Let those torment 

 ed by avarice or ambilion frequent those places 

 on a Sunday, and they will be cured of their vile 

 passions, if they are not incurable.&quot;* 



Such are a few sketches of the moral state 

 and character of the people of Paris, which, there 

 is every reason to believe, are, with a few mo 

 difications, applicable to the inhabitants of most 

 of the other large towns in France. Among the 

 great mass of the population f that country, 

 there appears to be no distinct f cognition of the 

 moral attributes of the Deity, /&quot; the obligation 

 of the Divine law, or of a future and eternal state 

 of existence. Whirled about incessantly in the 

 vortex of vanity and dissipation, the Creator is 

 lost sight of, moral responsibility disregarded, 

 and present sensual gratifications pursued with 



Several of the above sketches are extracted from 

 the &quot; Glasgow Geography,&quot; a work which contain! 

 an immense mass of historical, geographical, and 

 miscellaneous information 



