In respect to furniture, the houses of the “_parvenus_” are elegantly and splendidly fitted up. Most of the other private hotels have received little improvement, repair, or alteration, since the beginning of the revolution, and are consequently not very remarkable, either for freshness or novelty of taste. Carpets are not common; and though the beds are generally better, and in a more ornamental form, than those usually seen in England, and the antique shapes are most classically imitated in the decoration of these, and in the chairs, or _fauteuils_; yet, in other respects, I think our modern manner of fitting up houses has the advantage over that which generally prevails at Paris. Mahogany, so commonly used in England for dinner tables, is seldom applied to that purpose in France; and, as the cloth is never removed, they are made of deal. _En revanchè_ it forms, instead of gold, the frames of satin furniture; and the walls of drawing rooms are often ornamented with that wood. I cannot say, I admire mahogany thus employed; but this is entirely a matter of taste. Plate glass is, of course, very superiour, and infinitely more common in the decoration of rooms than in England; yet, with this exception, and a few others, I think our apartments in London are more completely furnished, are much cleaner, and have many little comforts which are wanting in those of Paris. Some particular houses here do, indeed, present models of taste, profusion, and luxury, unequalled by any of ours; but the number of these is very trifling, and alters but little the general result. The eating rooms of french houses are very disgusting. Instead of the comfortable turkey carpet, handsome curtains, _stuccoed_ walls, blazing fire, and ornamented sideboard, of a London parlour, the dinner is here served in a dark and gloomy apartment, called “_la salle à manger_,” imperfectly heated with a stove, the floor generally of stone, and always without a carpet, the windows without curtains or shutters, and the whole dirty and uninviting. Where there is not a separate antichamber, the servants occupy the dining rooms in the absence of their masters; and, in that case, the smell, which such company are apt to leave, is extremely offensive.