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[Page 373] Again to Versailles. In viewing the king's apartment, which
he had not left a quarter of an hour, with those slight
traits of disorder that showed he lived in it, it was amusing to see
the blackguard figures that were walking uncontrolled about
the palace, and even in his bedchamber; men whose rags betrayed them
to be in the last stage of poverty, and I was the only
person that stared and wondered how the devil they got there. It is
impossible not to like this careless indifference and freedom
from suspicion. One loves the master of the house, who would not be
hurt or offended [Page 374] at seeing his apartment thus
occupied if he returned suddenly, for if there was danger of this the
intrusion would be prevented. This is certainly a feature of
that good temper which appears to me so visible everywhere in France.
I desired to see the queen's apartments, but I could not.
“Is, her Majesty in it? No. Why then not see it as well as the king's?”
Ma foi, Monsieur, c'est une autre chose.
Ramble through the gardens, and by the grand canal with absolute astonishment
at the exaggerations of writers and travelers.
There is magnificence in the quarter of the orangery, but no beauty
anywhere; there are some statues, good enough to wish them
under cover. The extent and breadth of the canal are nothing to the
eye, and it is not in such good repair as a farmer's horse
pond. The menagerie is well enough, but nothing great.
This great city [Paris] 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 is 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 myself 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 poverty or wretched 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 footways, as their brethren do at Paris,
they would speedily and justly get very well threshed or rolled
in the kennel. This circumstance renders Paris an [Page 375] 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.
After a stay of three months, Young finds himself in the southern confines of the kingdom.
[August 11] Take the road to Lourdes, where is a castle on a rock, garrisoned
for the mere purpose of keeping state prisoners
sent hither by lettres de cachet. Seven or eight are known to be here
at present; thirty have been here at a time; and many for
life, - torn by the relentless hand of jealous tyranny from the bosom
of domestic comfort; from wives, children, friends, and
hurried for crimes unknown themselves - more probably for virtues -
to languish in this detested abode of misery, and die of
despair. O liberty! O liberty! And yet this is the mildest government
of any considerable country in Europe, our own excepted.
The dispensations of Providence seem to have permitted the human race
to exist only as the prey of tyrants, as it has made
pigeons for the prey of hawks. . . .