Peculiar Air of Frenchwomen.--Impossibility that an Englishwoman should not be known for such in Paris.--Small Shops.--Beautiful Flowers, and pretty arrangement of them.--Native Grace.--Disappearance of Rouge.--Grey Hair.--Every article dearer than in London.--All temptations to smuggling removed. Considering that it is a woman who writes to you, I think you will confess that you have no reason to complain of having been overwhelmed with the fashions of Paris: perhaps, on the contrary, you may feel rather disposed to grumble because all I have hitherto said on the fertile subject of dress has been almost wholly devoted to the historic and fanciful costume of the republicans. Personal appearance, and all that concerns it, is, however, a very important feature in the daily history of this showy city; and although in this respect it has been made the model of the whole world, it nevertheless contrives to retain for itself a general look, air, and effect, which it is quite in vain for any other people to attempt imitating. Go where you will, you see French fashions; but you must go to Paris to see how French people wear them. The dome of the Invalides, the towers of Notre Dame, the column in the Place Vendôme, the windmills of Montmartre, do not come home to the mind as more essentially belonging to Paris, and Paris only, than does the aspect which caps, bonnets, frills, shawls, aprons, belts, buckles, gloves,--and above, though below, all things else--which shoes and stockings assume, when worn by Parisian women in the city of Paris. It is in vain that all the women of the earth come crowding to this mart of elegance, each one with money in her sack sufficient to cover her from head to foot with all that is richest and best;--it is in vain that she calls to her aid all the _tailleuses_, _coiffeuses_, _modistes_, _couturières_, _cordonniers_, _lingères_, and _friseurs_ in the town: all she gets for her pains is, when she has bought, and done, and put on all and everything they have prescribed, that, in the next shop she enters, she hears one _grisette_ behind the counter mutter to another, "Voyez ce que désire cette dame anglaise;"--and that, poor dear lady! before she has spoken a single word to betray herself. Neither is it only the natives who find us out so easily--that might perhaps be owing to some little inexplicable freemasonry among themselves; but the worst of all is, that we know one another in a moment. "There is an Englishman,"--"That is an Englishwoman," is felt at a glance, more rapidly than the tongue can speak it.