536 CUSTOMS AND MANNERS. 



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As the fruit of our marriage, we have three httle boys, 

 whose rearing is confided to the nurse, and to a certain female, 

 the bosom friend of my wife, who is the oracle of the house. 

 We will leave this subje6t of the children, however, till ano- 

 ther opportunity, as the discussion would lead us too far, and 

 proceed to our more immediate obje£l. 



I have already mentioned my receipts and revenues : we 

 shall now see what are the expenditures. The rent of the 

 house amounts to four hundred and fifty piastres ; and still the 

 lady is not satisfied, because the parlour, she observes, is too 

 small for country dances. The ordinary expences of house- 

 keeping, in eating and shoe-leather, are not less than a thou- 

 sand piastres. The extraordinaries of calash and mule, pro- 

 menades and visits, exceed six hundred. Here then we find 

 somewhat more than the two thousand piastres which I am 

 able to scrape together with all my intelligence. But how are 

 we to be clad ? And how are the physician and surgeon, who 

 make at least a hundred visits in the year, some for the lying- 

 in, others to the mother, and others to the baby, to be paid ? 

 z'\ccording to a computation I have made, on an average of 

 five years, four jaldellins are required for the summer, and at 

 least two for the winter, in addition to which last, a thousand 

 supernumerary dresses are needed, because the faldellin which 

 served for one occasion is not to be brought out in a hurry for 

 another. How is all this to be discharged ? And, finally, 

 where are the means to pay the goldsmith who renews the 

 fashions, the tailor who invents, changes, and re-changes 

 them, and, more especially, the merchant who delivers to 

 my wdfe, on credit, the satins, plushes, velvets, &c. ? I am 

 truly so perplexed, that I know not how to turn myself. The 



commodes> 



