You know how much I dislike the petty detail of economical arrangements, and will therefore pardon me for having so long delayed to speak to you of the expenses and mode of living at Paris. I have not forgotten your queries, and will, in this letter, endeavour to answer them as fully as possible. You will, at least, derive one advantage from my apparent neglect; that the information which I shall now send you, is not hastily given, but the result of experience, gained during a residence of nearly seven months. Persons who have represented Paris (to use a vulgar phrase) as a cheap place, have either been greatly deceived themselves, or have intended purposely to deceive. The difference between the expense of living in London and in Paris, appears to me infinitely less than it is generally supposed. It is true, indeed, that a french family will apparently support a much more elegant establishment on a given income, than an english one can in London; but I believe the cause arises almost entirely from the superiour economy and arrangement of the former, from the sparing system observed in the interiour of private houses, and from the constant and unvarying attention to the _minutiæ_ of every disbursement. Though the table of a Parisian boasts, when company are invited, every kind of luxury, yet I have reason to suspect, that, on ordinary occasions, “le bouilli[87],” and “le vin ordinaire,” form its principal support. A carriage, which has been in a family twenty or thirty years, is treated with all the respect due to its antiquity, and is seldom or ever discarded on account of its oldfashioned shape or faded colour; and horses, used only now and then, may be fed on hay and straw. Liveries are forbidden by the law; and servants are therefore permitted to wait in the tattered garments which their present master has left off, or in those which they have collected in a former service. The drawing-rooms, and “_salles à manger_,” are lighted, even at the largest assemblies, with oil, instead of wax; and antichambers and staircases are so dark, that to find one’s way into the principal apartment is generally a service of difficulty, if not of danger. As to fire, on common occasions, one in the bed room either of “madame,” or “monsieur,” is thought sufficient, with the addition of a “poële,” or stove, which is so contrived, as to heat both the eating room, and the antichamber, in which latter the servants always sit. In respect to dress, an old great coat (or “riding coat,” as they call it) is often worn in the house, by gentlemen, and the _belles_ who appear with the greatest splendour in the evening, sometimes pass their morning in a powdering gown, or “_robe de chambre_.”