our whole journey was a series of distresses. We had not sailed a league from Dover, before a violent storm arose, in which we had like to have been lost. Nothing could equal our fears but our sickness, which perhaps lessened them at last we got into Calais, where the inexorable custom-house officers took away half the few things, which. we had carried with us. We hired some chaises, which proved to be old and shattered ones, and broke down with us at least every ten miles. Twice we were overturned, and some of us hurt, though there are no bad roads in France. At length, the sixth day, we got to Paris, where our banker had provided a very good lodging for us; that is, very good rooms, very well furnished, and very dirty. Here the great scene opens. My wife and daughter, who had been a good deal disheartened by our distresses, recovered their spirits, and grew extremely impatient for a consultation of the necessary trades-people, when luckily our banker and his lady, informed of our arrival, came to make us a visit. He graciously brought me five thousand livres, which he assured me was not more than what would be necessary for our first setting out, as he called it; while his wife was pointing out to mine the most compendious method of spending three times as much. I told him, that I hoped that sum would be very near sufficient for the whole time; to which he answered coolly, "No, sir, nor six times that sum, if you propose, as to be sure you do, to appear here honnêtement." This, I confess, startled me a good deal; and I called out to my wife, "Do you hear that, child?" She replied, unmoved, "Yes, my dear; but now, that we are here, there is no help for it; it is but once, upon an extraordinary occasion; and one would not care to appear among strangers like scrubs.” I made no answer to this solid reasoning, but resolved within myself to shorten our stay, and lessen our follies as much as I could. My banker, after having charged him L self with the care of procuring me a carosse de remise and a valet de place for the next day, which, in plain English, is a hired coach and a footman, invited us to pass all the next day at his house, where he assured us, that we should not meet with bad company. He was to carry me and my son, before dinner, to see the public buildings, and his lady was to call upon my wife and daughter to carry them to the genteelest shops, in order to fit them out to appear honnêtement. The next morning I amused myself very well with seeing, while my wife and daughter amused themselves still better, by preparing themselves for being seen, till we met at dinner at our banker's; who, by way of sample of the excellent company to which he was to introduce us, presented to us an Irish abbé, and an Irish captain of Clare's; two attainted Scotch fugitives, and a young Scotch surgeon, who studied midwifry at the Hotel Dieu. It is true, he lamented that sir Harbottle Bumper and sir Clotworthy Guzzledown, with their families, whom he had invited to meet us, happened unfortunately to have been engaged to go and drink brandy at Nucilly. Though this company sounds but indifferently, and though we should have been very sorry to have kept it in London, I can assure you, sir, that it was the best we kept the whole time we were at Paris. I will omit many circumstances, which gave me uneasiness, though they would probably afford some entertainment to your readers, that I may hasten to the most material ones. In about three days, the several mechanics, who were charged with the care of disguising my wife and daughter, brought home their respective parts of this transformation, in order that they might appear honnêtement. More than the whole morning was employed in this operation; for we did not sit down to dinner till near five o'clock. When my wife and daughter came at last into the eating room, where I had waited for them at least two hours, I was so struck with their transformation, that I could neither conceal nor express my astonishment. "Now, my dear," -said my wife, we can appear a little like Christians." "And strollers too," replied I; "for such have I seen, at ፡፡ Southwark Fair, the respectable Sysigambis, and the lovely Parisatis. This cannot surely be serious!" Very serious, depend upon it, my dear," said my wife; " and pray, by the way, what may there be ridiculous in it? No such Sysigambis neither," continued she; "Betty is but sixteen, and you know I had her at four and twenty." As I found that the name of Sysigambis, carrying an idea of age along with it, was offensive to my wife, I waved the parallel; and, addressing myself in common to my wife and daughter, I told them, "I perceived that there was a painter, now at Paris, who coloured much higher than Rigault, though he did not paint near so like; for that I could hardly have guessed them to be the pictures of themselves." To this they both answered at once, "That red was not paint; that no colour in the world was fard but white, of which they protested they had none." "But how do you like my pompon, papa?" continued my daughter;" is it not a charming one? I think it is prettier than mamma's." "It may, child, for any thing that I know; because I do not know what part of all this frippery thy pompon is." "It is this, papa," replied the girl, putting up her hand to her head, and showing me in the middle of her hair a complication of shreds and rags of velvets, feathers, and ribands, stuck with false stones of a thousand colours, and placed awry. "But what hast thou done to thy hair, child!” said I; " is it blue? Is that painted too by the same eminent hand that coloured thy cheeks?" "Indeed, papa," answered the girl, as I told you before, there is no painting in the case; but what gives my hair that bluish cast, is the gray powder, which has always that effect upon dark coloured hair, and sets off the complexion wonderfully." "Gray powder, child!" said I, with some surprise: "Gray hairs, I knew, were venerable; but, till this moment, I never knew that they were genteel." Extremely so, with some complexions," said my wife; "but it does not suit with mine, and I never use it." "You are much in the right, my dear,” replied I, “not to play with edge-tools. Leave it to the girl." This, which perhaps was too hastily said, and seemed to be a second part of the Sysigambis, was not kindly taken; my wife was silent all dinner time, and I vainly hoped ashamed. My daughter, drunk with dress, and sixteen, kept up the conversation with herself, till the long wished for moment of the opera came, which separated us, and left me time to reflect upon the extravagances, which I had already seen, and upon the still greater, which I had but too much reason to dread. } From this period to the time of our return to England, every day produced some new and shining folly, and some improper expense. Would to God, that they had ended as they began, with our journey! but unfortunately, we have imported them all. I no longer understand, or am' understood, in my family. I hear of nothing but le bon ton. A French valet de chambre, who I am told is an excellent servant, and fit for every thing, is brought over to curl my wife's and my daughter's hair, to mount a dessert, as they call it, and occasionally to announce visits. A very slatternly, dirty, but at the same time a very genteel French maid, is appropriated to the use of my daughter. My meat, too, is as much disguised in the dressing by a French cook, as my wife and my daughter are by their red, their pompons, their scraps of dirty gauze, flimsy sattins, and black callicoes; not to mention their affected broken English and mangled French, which, jumbled together, compose their present language. My French and English servants quarrel daily, and fight for want of words tò abuse one another. My wife is become ridiculous by being translated into French, and the version of my daughter will, I dare say, hinder many a worthy English gentleman from attempting to read her. My expense (and consequently my debt) increases; and I am made moré unhappy by follies, than most other people are by crimes. Should you think fit to publish this my case, together with some observations of your own upon it, I hope it may prove a useful Pharos, to deter private English families from the coasts of France. I am, sir, Your very humble servant, R. D. WORLD. THE CIT'S BOX. THE wealthy Cit, grown old in trade, And buckles to his one horse chair |