Where you propose to stay any time, be very cautious with whom you make an acquaintance, as there are always a number of officious forward Frenchmen, and English adventurers, ready to offer you their services, from whom you will find it very difficult to disengage yourself, after you have found more agreeable company.--Frenchmen of real fashion, are very circumspect, and will not _fall in love with you_ at first sight; but a designing knave will exercise every species of flattery, in order to fix himself upon you for his dinner, or what else he can get, and will be with you before you are up, and after you are in bed. XIII. Wherever there is any cabinet of curiosities, medals, pictures, &c. to be seen, never make any scruple to send a card, desiring permission to view them; the request is flattering to a Frenchman, and you will never be refused; and besides this you will in all probability thereby gain a valuable acquaintance.--It is generally men of sense and philosophy, who make such collections, and you will find the collector of them, perhaps, the most pleasing part of the cabinet. XIV. Take it as a maxim, unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, that whenever you are invited to a supper at _Paris_, _Lyons_, or any of the great cities, where a _little_ trifling play commences before supper, that GREAT PLAY is intended after supper; and that you are the marked pigeon to be plucked. Always remember _Lord Chesterfield's_ advice to his son: "If you play with men, know with _whom_ you play; if with women, for _what_:" and don't think yourself the more secure, because you see at the same table some of your own countrymen, though they are Lords or Ladies; a _London_ gambler would have no chance in a _Parisian_ party. XV. Dress is an essential and most important consideration with every body in France. A Frenchman never appears till his hair is well combed and powdered, however slovenly he may be in other respects.--Not being able to submit every day to this ceremony, the servant to a gentleman of fashion at whose house I visited in _Marseilles_, having forgot my name described me to his master, as the gentleman whose hair was _toujours mal frise_.--Dress is a foolish thing, says _Lord Chesterfield_; yet it is a foolish thing not to be well dressed. XVI. You cannot dine, or visit after dinner, in an undress frock, or without a bag to your hair; the hair _en queue_, or a little cape to your coat, would be considered an unpardonable liberty. Military men have an advantage above all others in point of dress, in France; a regimental or military coat carries a man with a _bonne grace_ into all companies, with or without a bag to his hair; it is of all others the properest dress for a stranger in France, on many accounts. XVII.