Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vo | Page 7

vain; and as they
enjoy at least a moral certainty of never living worse than they do

to-day: while the little knot of unmarried females turned fifty round
Red Lion Square may always be ruined by a runaway agent, a
bankrupted banker, or a roguish steward; and even the petty pleasures
of six-penny quadrille may become by that misfortune too costly for
their income.--Aureste, as the French say, the difference is small: both
coteries sit separate in the morning, go to prayers at noon, and read the
chapters for the day: change their neat dress, eat their little dinner, and
play at small games for small sums in the evening; when recollection
tires, and chat runs low.
But more adventurous characters claim my present attention. All Paris I
think, myself among the rest, assembled to see the valiant brothers,
Robert and Charles, mount yesterday into the air, in company with a
certain Pilâtre de Rosier, who conducted them in the new-invented
flying chariot fastened to an air-balloon. It was from the middle of the
Tuilleries that they set out, a place very favourable and well-contrived
for such public purposes. But all was so nicely managed, so cleverly
carried on somehow, that the order and decorum of us who remained on
firm ground, struck me more than even the very strange sight of human
creatures floating in the wind: but I have really been witness to ten
times as much bustle and confusion at a crowded theatre in London,
than what these peaceable Parisians made when the whole city was
gathered together. Nobody was hurt, nobody was frighted, nobody
could even pretend to feel themselves incommoded. Such are among
the few comforts that result from a despotic government.
My republican spirit, however, boiled up a little last Monday, when I
had to petition Mons. de Calonne for the restoration of some trifles
detained in the custom-house at Calais. His politeness, indeed, and the
sight of others performing like acts of humiliation, reconciled me in
some measure to the drudgery of running from subaltern to subaltern,
intreating, in pathetic terms, the remission of a law which is at last
either just or unjust; if just, no felicitation should, methinks, be
permitted to change it; if unjust, what can be so grating as the
obligation to solicit?
We mean to quit Paris to-morrow; I therefore enquired this evening,

what was become of our aërial travellers. A very grave man replied,
"_Je crois, Madame, qu'ils sont dejá arrivès ces Messieurs là, au lieu ou
les vents se forment_[D]."
[Footnote D: I fancy, Ma'am, the gentlemen are gone to see the place
where all the winds blow from.]

LYONS.
Sept. 25, 1784.
We left the capital at our intended time, and put into the carriage, for
amusement, a book seriously recommended by Mr. Goldoni; but which
diverted me only by the fanfaronades that it contained. The author has,
however, got the premium by this performance, which the Academy of
Berlin promised to whoever wrote best this year on any Belles Lettres
subject. This gentleman judiciously chose to give reasons for the
universality of the French language, and has been so gaily insolent to
every other European nation in his flimsy pamphlet, that some will
probably praise, many reply to, all read, and all forget it. I will confess
myself so seized on by his sprightly impertinence, that I wished for
leisure to translate, and wit to answer him at first, but the want of one
solid thought by which to recollect his existence has cured me; and I
now find that he was deliciously cool and sharp, like the ordinary wine
of the country we are passing through, which having no body, can
neither keep its little power long, nor even use it while fresh to any
sensible effect.
The country is really beautiful; but descriptions are so fallacious, one
half despairs of communicating one's ideas as they are: for either
well-chosen words do not present themselves, or being well-chosen
they detain the reader, and fix his mind on them, instead of the things
described. Certain it is that I had formed no adequate notion of the fine
river called the Yonne, with cattle grazing on its fertile banks: those
banks not clothed indeed with our soft verdure, but with royal purple,
proceeding from an autumnal daisy of that colour that enamels every

meadow at this season. Here small enclosures seem unknown to the
inhabitants, who are strewed up and down expansive views of a most
productive country; where vineyards swell upon the rising grounds, and
young wheat ornaments the valleys below: while clusters of aspiring
poplars, or a single walnut-tree of greater size and dignity unite in
attracting attention, and inspiring poetical ideas. Here is no tedious
uniformity to fatigue the eye, nor rugged asperities to