Nancy 163 



infinite consequence of great cities to the liberty of mankind ? 

 Without Paris, I question whether the present revolution, which 

 is fast working in France, could possibly have had an origin. 

 It is not in the villages of Syria or Diarbekir that the Grand 

 Seigneur meets with a murmur against his will; it is at Con- 

 stantinople that he is obliged to manage and mix caution even 

 with despotism. Mr. Willemet, who is demonstrator of botany, 

 showed me the botanical garden, but it is in a condition that 

 speaks the want of better funds. He introduced me to a 

 Monsieur Durival, who has written on the vine, and gave me 

 one of his treatises, and also two of his own on botanical subjects. 

 He also cpnducted me to Monsieur I'Abbe Grandpere, a gentle- 

 man curious in gardening, who, as soon as he knew that I was 

 an Englishman, whimsically took it into his head to introduce 

 me to a lady, my countrywoman, who hired, he said, the greatest 

 part of his house. I remonstrated against the impropriety of 

 this, but all in vain; the abbe had never travelled, and thought 

 that if he were at the distance of England from France (the 

 French are not commonly good geographers) he should be very 

 glad to see a Frenchman; and that, by parity of reasoning, this 

 lady must be the same to meet a countryman she never saw or 

 heard of. Away he went, and would not rest till I was con- 

 ducted into her apartment. It was the dowager Lady Douglas; 

 she was unaffected and good enough not to be offended at such 

 a strange intrusion. — She had been here but a few days; had 

 two fine daughters with her, and a beautiful Kamchatka dog; 

 she was much troubled with the intelligence her friends in the 

 town had just given her, that she would, in all probability, be 

 forced to move again, as the news of ^lonsieur Neckar's removal, 

 and the new ministry being appointed, would certainly occasion 

 such dreadful tumults that a foreign family would probably 

 find it equally dangerous and disagreeable. — 18 miles. 



i6lh. All the houses at Nancy have tin eave troughs and 

 pipes, which render walking the streets much more easy and 

 agreeable; it is also an additional consumption, which is 

 politically useful. Both this place and Luneville are lighted in 

 the English manner, instead of the lamps being strung across 

 the streets as in other French towns. Before I quit Nancy, let 

 me caution the unwary traveller, if he is not a great lord, with 

 plenty of money that he does not know what to do with, against 

 the hotel d' Angleterre ; a bad dinner 3 livres, and for the room a.s 

 much more. A pint of wine and a plate of chaudie 20 sous, 

 which at Metz was 10 sous, and in addition I liked so little my 



