Liancourt 71 



venom as if he had been a mad dog; thanks to the vile spirit of 

 bigotry, which has not yet received its death's wound. Women 

 of the first fashion in France are now ashamed of not nursing 

 their own children, and stays are universally proscribed from 

 the bodies of the poor infants, which were for so many ages 

 tortured in them, as they are still in Spain. The country resi- 

 dence may not have effects equally obvious, but they will be no 

 less sure in the end, and in all respects beneficial to every class 

 in the state. 



The Duke of Liancourt being president of the provincial 

 assembly of the election of Clermont, and passing several days 

 there in business, asked me to dine with the assembly, as he 

 said there were to be some considerable farmers present. 

 These assemblies, which had been proposed many years past 

 by the French patriots, and especially by the Marquis de Mira- 

 beau, the celebrated Vami des hotumes, which had been treated 

 by M. Necker, and which were viewed with eyes of jealousy by 

 certain persons who wished for no better government than one 

 whose abuses were the chief foundation of their fortunes — these 

 assemblies were to me interesting to see. I accepted the in- 

 vitation with pleasure. Three considerable farmers, renters, 

 not proprietors of land, were members, and present. I watched 

 their carriage narrowly to see their behaviour in the presence 

 of a great lord of the first rank, considerable property, and high 

 in rgxaj^favourj and it was with pleasure that I found them 

 behaving with becoming ease and freedom, and though modest 

 and without anything like flippancy, yet without any ob- 

 sequiousness offensive to English ideas. They stated their 

 opinions freely, and adhered to them with becoming confidence. 

 A more singular spectacle was to see two ladies present at a 

 dinner of this sort, with five or six and twenty gentlemen; such 

 a thing could not happen in England. To say that the French ' 

 manners in this respect are better than our own is the assertion "^ 

 of an obvious truth. If the ladies are not present at meetings ' 

 where the conversation has the greatest probability of turning 

 on subjects of more importance than the frivolous topics of 

 common discourse, the sex must either remain on one hand in 

 ignorance, or, on the other, filled with the foppery of over- 

 education, learned, affected, and forbidding. The conversation 

 of men, not engaged in trifling pursuits, is the best school for 

 the education of a woman. 



The political con\'ersation of every company I have seen has 

 turned much more on the affairs of Holland than on those of 



