THEATRE AT PARIS, 213 



horridly difgufting fcreams did not appear to me by 

 half fo difgufting. 



Saint Prix, who performed Hamlet, gave me great 

 fatisfaction, while he played with moderation ; but in 

 his affectations he appeared no lefs mocking to me than 

 divine to the parterre. Indeed I had not told him that 

 a foreigner was to be among his audience, that he 

 might have managed himfelf accordingly, to be clapped 

 by him, and hifTed by his own countrymen. 



The 23d. — This day was devoted to rambling about 

 Paris. Without either guide or fettled plan, I entered 

 the croud, and was carried with it along the ftreet 

 St. Honore. I firft began to fetch breath at the en- 

 trance to the place Vendome. It is a handfome fquare, 

 and bounded by palaces ; but for that very reafon is 

 empty of people. Louis le grand, on his monflrous 

 horfe, does not fill up the void. 



From hence I was pufhed on to the place Louis 

 Quinze. He fills his fquare ftill lefs than the other ; 

 for he is fmaller than his predeceflbr, and his fquare is 

 much larger. 



I haftened through the folemn gardens of the Tuiile- 

 ries, acrofs the Pont Royal (which is far lefs than the 

 Pont Neuf, and neither fo elegant nor fo frequented) ; 

 from thence along the quays des Quatre Nations, of the 

 Theatins and Auguftins, in the Fauxbourg St. Ger- 

 main, pafTing by the Theatre francois, to the palais de 

 Luxembourg. This antient venerable pile is haftening 

 faft to ruin ; and what Monfieur, its prefent poiTefTor, 

 is now doing to it, has no other end in view than to 

 keep it from falling. The garden is a copy of the 

 Tuilleries, full of fine, lofty, gloomy allees, intermixed 



? 3 • with 



