Paris 85 



of Voltaire go to the canal of Languedoc, and by no means to 

 Versailles. — Return to Paris. — 14 miles. 



24th. With Monsieur de Broussonet to the king's cabinet 

 of natural history and the botanical garden which is in beautiful 

 order. Its riches are well known^ and the politeness of Monsieur 

 Thouin, which is that of a most amiable disposition, renders 

 this garden the scene of other rational pleasures besides those 

 of botany. Dine at the Invalides with Monsieur Parmentier, 

 the celebrated author of many economical works, particularly 

 on the boulangerie of France. This gentleman, to a considerable 

 mass of useful knowledge, adds a great deal of that fire and 

 vivacity for which his nation has been distinguished, but which 

 I have not recognised so often as I expected. 



25//?. This gi'eat city appears to be in many respects the most 

 ineligible and inconvenient for the residence of a person of small 

 fortune of any that I have seen; and vastly inferior to London, 

 The streets are very narrow, and many of them crowded, nine- 

 tenths dirty, and all without foot-pavements. Walking, which 

 in London is so pleasant and so clean that ladies do it every day, 

 is here a toil and a fatigue to a man and an impossibility to a 

 well-dressed woman. The coaches are numerous, and, what are 

 much worse, there are an infinity of one-horse cabriolets which 

 are driven by young men of fashion and their imitators, alike 

 fools, with such rapidity as to be real nuisances, and render the 

 streets exceedingly dangerous without an incessant caution. 

 I saw a poor child run over and probably killed, and have been 

 mvself many times blackened with the mud of the kennels. 

 This beggarly practice of driving a one-horse booby hutch about 

 the streets of a great capital flows either from povertyorwretched 

 and despicable economy; nor is it possible to speak of it with 

 too much severity. If young noblemen at London were to 

 drive their chaises in streets without foot-ways, as their brethren 

 do at Paris, they would speedily and justly get very well 

 thrashed or rolled in the kennel. This circumstance renders 

 Paris an ineligible residence for persons, particularly families, 

 that cannot afford to keep a coach; a convenience which is as 

 dear as at London. The fiacres, hackney-coaches, are much 

 worse than at that city; and chairs there are none, for they 

 would be driven down in the streets. To this circumstance also 

 it is owing that all persons of small or moderate fortune are 

 forced to dress in black, with black stockings ; the dusky hue 

 of this in company is not so disagreeable a circumstance as being 

 too great a distinction; too clear a line drawn in company 



