and not even the centre of Lombard-street itself affords a truer illustration of the sentiment, than this town of mud and money, contrasted with its beautiful environs. The distant view of Lyons is imposing from most points; but the interior presents but few objects to repay the traveller for its closeness, stench, and bustle (not even good silk stockings). Its two noble rivers have had no apparent effect in purifying it, nor the easterly winds from the Alps, which stand in full sight, in ventilating its narrow smoky streets: and though usually considered the second city of the empire in wealth and importance, the houses and their inhabitants appear marvellously inferior to Bordeaux and the Bordelais in the air of neatness and fashion which might be expected to mark this distinction. In every thing relating to Bordeaux there is an easy elegant exterior, which conveys the idea of an independent and frequented capital of a kingdom, and an eligible residence; whereas Lyons bears the obvious marks of its manufacturing origin, defiling, like our own Colebrook Dale, a lovely country by its smoke and stench, and leaving hardly one of the five senses unmolested. Those fine buildings of which it can boast, take their place amid the general mass, like a fastidious courtier in low company, "Wondering how the devil they came there." Whereas the elegant theatre of Bordeaux appears just in its proper situation, and supported by suitable accompaniments of well-dressed people and airy streets. After the sight of the Hotel Dieu, a standing proof that the Lyonnese can employ their money laudably and well, I will not pretend to judge whether there is any truth in the charge of avarice brought against them, and which Voltaire slyly admits in a professed eulogium on Lyons. There are other reasons accounting in a degree for its inferiority to Bordeaux in appearance, and the sordid impression which it leaves on the mind. In the first place, to judge from the innumerable quantities of villas of all sizes within reach of the town, it seems that the rich Lyonnese appreciate their fine environs as they deserve, and consider the country as the scene of display and enjoyment, while they treat Lyons as a mere counting-house. On the contrary, the villas in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux appear comparatively few, and business and pleasure to unite in the town itself. The imagination also may have some share in giving the preference, particularly after reading[9] M. de Ruffigny's tirade against his infantine life in the silk mills of Lyons. One fancies the merchant conversant with a higher and less sordid class of persons and details than the master spinner, and vineyards more agreeable objects than dying-houses and treddles. Be this as it may, appearances are certainly in favour of Bordeaux as the second city in France. [Footnote 9: See Godwin's St. Leon.] CHAP. IV. LYONS TO MONTELIMART.