It is a world, an order of ideas, an assemblage of laws and customs entirely different from all others. “A Parisian may for years walk round English society as he would walk round the wall of China, without being able to find either a door or a window. He understands absolutely nothing about it. “In France, on the contrary, Englishmen find a greater social liberty. French society is an open society; French manners are cosmopolitan manners. The most diverse peoples can in France find their place without losing their national character. In our country everyone is at home, and the Englishman gets on comfortably enough. In the Englishman, however, it is necessary to distinguish between the citizen and the individual; for he is both. When the national interests or passions are in question he does not scruple to intrigue and conspire; when he is unconcerned with the politics of the country where he happens to find himself, he practises the greatest reserve and mixes in nothing. See the English at Paris. They assist at all our revolutions as mere spectators; their sole care is to get a good seat. They always come to their ambassador to request a presentation at the Tuileries and tickets for the court ball.” So far we have presented the observations of M. Lemoinne for what they may be worth. That his skilful pen, however, penetrates sometimes into the regions of truth is shown by the fact that his remarks not infrequently recall those of foreign writers so famous as to be regarded more or less as oracular. Heine, after visiting London, complained that at an English dinner party the gentlemen, after the ladies had retired from the dining-room, remained at table for an hour or two to saturate themselves with port. Heine, it must be remembered, took a perverse delight in satirising everything English. But that we, in England, do leave the ladies to drink their after-dinner coffee in the desolation of the drawing-room must be handsomely admitted. M. Lemoinne notices this peculiarity. “The time has passed,” he says--with burlesque drollery--“when the true Englishman remained at table for several hours after dinner and ended by slumbering beneath it. Now, when the ladies have quitted the dining-room, the gentlemen content themselves with circulating the Bordeaux for twenty minutes. In France we are beginning to divest ourselves of certain prejudices concerning the English. For a long time we regarded the English character as synonymous with ‘spleen.’ It was an old French author who said of the English: ‘They amuse themselves sadly, after the custom of their country.’ “The fact is the English are gay in their own fashion, and sometimes even expansive and noisy; but they are not gay with everybody, nor on a first acquaintance. They must unfreeze; they are like the wine of Bordeaux, which, to give forth its fragrance, has to be warmed.” * * * * *