A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium, during the summer and autumn of 1814Bernard, Richard Boyle
History
A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium, during the summer and autumn of 1814
Bernard, Richard Boyle
Europe -- Description and travel
The Guide to Paris informs us, that the city is divided into several
quarters; that the vicinity of the _Palais Royal_, of the _Thuilleries_,
and of the _Chaussée d'Antin_, are the most fashionable, and of course
the most expensive; but that lodgings are to be met with on reasonable
terms in parts of the city, which are fully as desirable, particularly
in the suburb of St. Germain. There are furnished hotels to be met with
on a large scale in that quarter, it having been mostly inhabited by
foreign princes and ambassadors; and it was also much frequented by
English families, as they considered it the most healthy and quiet part
of Paris.
The Quarter du Marais was principally occupied by lawyers, financiers,
annuitants; and, in short, all the Jews of the nation lodged there.
The Quarter of the Palais Royal is chiefly inhabited by sharpers,
cheats, loungers, and idle people of all descriptions. Who could think
that a space of ground not exceeding 150 acres, contains more
heterogeneous materials blended together than are to be found in the
9910 acres (the French acre is one and a quarter, English measure) on
which the city of Paris stands? It is the great mart of pleasure, of
curiosity, and of corruption; and if the police wish to apprehend an
offender, it is in the Palais Royal that they are sure to find him.
Before the period of the revolution there were here but two public
gaming houses; but at present the number is really astonishing. The
police under Buonaparte did not discourage their increase; they argued
that these houses were the _rendezvous_ of all sharpers, villains, and
conspirators; and that they often saved an ineffectual search for them
in other quarters. A government like that of Buonaparte did not
reflect, that these houses, which thus abounded with desperate
characters, did not fail to perpetuate their number by the corruption
which they caused in the principles of the rising generation; and many
of the best informed Frenchmen are well aware that it will be the work
of time, to recover their country from the _demoralized_ state in which
it was left after the government of Buonaparte.
On the subject of gaming a French writer has justly observed: "Quand il
serait vrai que la passion du jeu ne finit pas toujours par le crime,
toujours est il constant qu'elle finit par l'infortune et le
deshonneur." "Granting it to be true, that the love of gaming does not
always terminate in crime, yet still it invariably ends in misfortune
and dishonour." But is it not rather improbable that those who have so
far transgressed as to apprehend the vigilance of the police, should
venture into the very places where they must be aware of immediate
detection?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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