Our hero boiled with indignation at this instance of injustice and arbitrary power; and, turning to his governor, asked, if this too was a proof of the happiness enjoyed by the French people. Jolter replied, that every human constitution must, in some things, be imperfect and owned, that in this kingdom, gentlemen were more countenanced than the vulgar, because it was to be presumed that their own sentiments of honour and superior qualifications would entitle them to this pre-eminence, which had also a retrospective view to the merit of their ancestors, in consideration of which they were at first ennobled; but he affirmed, that the innkeeper had misrepresented the magistracy, which, in France, never failed to punish flagrant outrages and abuse, without respect of persons. The painter approved of the wisdom of the French government, in bridling the insolence of the mob, by which, he assured them, he had often suffered in his own person; having been often bespattered by hackney-coachmen, jostled by draymen and porters, and reviled in the most opprobrious terms by the watermen of London, where he had once lost his bag and a considerable quantity of hair, which had been cut off by some rascal in his passage through Ludgate, during the Lord Mayor's procession. On the other hand, the doctor with great warmth alleged, that those officers ought to suffer death, or banishment at least, for having plundered the people in this manner, which was so impudent and barefaced, as plainly to prove they were certain of escaping with impunity, and that they were old offenders in the same degree of delinquency. He said, that the greatest man in Athens would have been condemned to perpetual exile, and seen his estate confiscated for public use, had he dared in such a licentious manner to violate the rights of a fellow-citizen; and as for the little affronts to which a man may be subject from the petulance of the multitude, he looked upon them as glorious indications of liberty, which ought not to be repressed, and would at any time rejoice to find himself overthrown in a kennel by the insolence of a son of freedom, even though the fall should cost him a limb; adding, by way of illustration, that the greatest pleasure he ever enjoyed was in seeing a dustman wilfully overturn a gentleman's coach, in which two ladies were bruised, even to the danger of their lives. Pallet, shocked at the extravagance of this declaration, “If that be the case,” said he, “I wish you may see every bone in your body broke by the first carman you meet in the streets of London.” This argument being discussed, and the reckoning discharged without any deduction, although the landlord, in stating the articles, had an eye to the loss he had sustained by his own countrymen, they departed from Arras, and arrived in safety at Lisle, about two o'clock in the afternoon.