1 6 Travels in France 



I view it without emotion: the impression it makes is nothing. 

 What can compensate the want of unity? From whatever 

 point viewed, it appears an assemblage of buildings ; a splendid 

 quarter of a town, but not a fine edifice; an objection from 

 which the garden front is not free, though by far the most 

 beautiful.— The great gallery is the finest room I have seen; 

 the other apartments are nothing; but the pictures and statues 

 are well known to be a capital collection. The whole palace, 

 except the chapel, seems to be open to all the world ; we pushed 

 through an amazing crowd of all sorts of people to see the pro- 

 cession, many of them not very well dressed, whence it appears 

 that no questions are asked. But the officers at the door of 

 the apartment in which the king dined made a distinction, and 

 would not permit all to enter promiscuously. 



Travellers speak much, even very late ones, of the remarkable 

 interest the French take in all that personally concerns their 

 king, showing by the eagerness of their attention not curiosity 

 only, but love. Where, how, and in whom those gentlemen 

 discovered this I know not. — It is either misrepresentation, or 

 the people are changed in a few years more than is credible. 

 Dine at Paris, and in the evening the Duchess of Liancourt, 

 who seems to be one of the best of women, carried me to the 

 opera at St. Cloud, where also we viewed the palace which the 

 queen is building; it is large, but there is much in the front that 

 does not please me. — 20 miles. 



2Sth. Finding my mare sufficiently recovered for a journey, 

 a point of importance to a traveller so weak in cavalry as myself, 

 I left Paris, accompanying the Count de la Rochefoucauld and 

 my friend Lazowski, and commencing a journey that is to 

 cross the whole kingdom to the Pyrenees. The road to Orleans 

 is one of the greatest that leads from Paris, I expected, therefore, 

 to have my former impression of the little traffic near that city 

 removed; but on the contrary it was confirmed; it is a desert 

 compared with those around London. In ten miles we met not 

 one stage or diligence; only two messageries, and very few 

 chaises; not a tenth of what would have been met had we 

 been leaving London at the same hour. Knowing how great, 

 rich, and important a city Paris is, this circumstance perplexes 

 me much. Should it afterwards be confirmed, conclusions in 

 abundance are to be drawn. 



For a few miles, the scene is everywhere scattered with the 

 shafts of quarries, the stone drawn up by lanthorn wheels of a 

 great diameter. The country diversified ; and its greatest want 



