With respect to the fair sex, they are generally lively and fascinating, and possessed of susceptible feelings, capable of being converted into strong attachments. These are some of the essential requisites for forming an amiable, and virtuous character; but, alas! the good is perverted by the influence of an injudicious and trifling system of education, extended at most to superficial literary acquisitions, which barely serve for the dictation of an ungrammatical _billetdoux_, or the copying of a song. The most devoted attention is given to the art of pleasing, and the study of dress, which, with the auxiliaries of music and embroidery, form the leading occupations of young French females. In conversation they are acute, playful, and frequently sensible, but it cannot be wondered at, when the defects of education are taken into account, that there should be little which sinks deep into the heart, and leaves an impression, or promise, of future matron-like virtue. Many ladies, however, are educated in convents, where they acquire a temporary spirit of bigotry, which wears off after they return into the world, and frequently leaves behind it a proportionate want of religious feeling. They, generally, marry young enough to enable a judicious husband to form a character if defective, or to correct it if deformed; but here they are truly to be pitied; for they soon experience a culpable neglect from those men who ought to be their inseparable protectors and advisers, and who, preferring the society of others, leave them incautiously to their own pursuits and feelings. Is it to be wondered at that they should cease to cultivate the domestic virtues? To conclude; the French female contains within her those principles, which, under proper cultivation, would produce excellent wives, and estimable women; and it is a serious reflection upon the national character, that such principles should be sacrificed by the indifference, and neglect of those whose duty, as well as interest it is, to elicit and establish her virtues. CHAP. X. ST. ROSALIE. My first object, on arriving at Nice, was to ascertain whether Mr. L⸺, lately one of my acquaintance at Aix, was yet at Nice, where he had been for a time residing, and of which I was doubtful, as I knew that he was about this time intending to proceed farther into Italy. I had been apprised that I should hear of him at the house of Madame M⸺ at St. Rosalie, about a mile and a half distant from the town; and, as I was aware that he had paved the way to an introduction for me to this lady, I procured a valet-de-place to conduct me thither. I had the happiness to find him still in the neighbourhood, residing at a very short distance from Madame M⸺, although on the point of proceeding on his proposed tour. Through his recommendation, I was immediately received as an inmate in the family of Madame M⸺, consisting of herself, two daughters, and a young English lady, Miss T⸺.