He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax-candles, cups of tea, glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying the same; but intimacy there is none; we see but the outsides of the people. Year by year we live in France, and grow grey, and see no more. We play écarté with Monsieur de Trèfle every night; but what know we of the heart of the man--of the inward ways, thoughts, and customs of Trèfle? If we have good legs, and love the amusement, we dance with Countess Flicflac, Tuesdays and Thursdays, ever since the Peace: and how far are we advanced in acquaintance with her since we first twirled her round a room? We know her velvet gown, and her diamonds (about three-fourths of them are sham, by the way); we know her smiles, and her simpers, and her rouge--but no more: she may turn into a kitchen-wench at twelve on Thursday night, for aught we know; her _voiture_, a pumpkin; and her _gens_, so many rats: but the real, rougeless, _intime_ Flicflac, we know not. This privilege is granted to no Englishman: we may understand the French language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can penetrate into Flicflac’s confidence: our ways are not her ways; our manners of thinking not hers; when we say a good thing, in the course of the night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac will trill you off fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the _bêtise_ of the Briton, who has never a word to say. We are married, and have fourteen children, and would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our own wife. If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day after her marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool. We won’t play at écarté with Trèfle on Sunday nights; and are seen walking, about one o’clock (accompanied by fourteen red-haired children, with fourteen gleaming prayer-books), away from the church. ‘Grand Dieu!’ cries Trèfle, ‘is that man mad? He won’t play at cards on a Sunday; he goes to church on a Sunday; he has fourteen children!’ [Illustration: HOW TO ASTONISH THE FRENCH AN ENGLISH FAMILY IN THE TUILERIES] Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our argument, which is, that with our English notions and moral and physical constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become intimate with our brisk neighbours; and when such authors as Lady Morgan and Mrs. Trollope, having frequented a certain number of tea-parties in the French capital, begin to prattle about French manners and men--with all respect for the talents of those ladies, we do believe their information not to be worth a sixpence: they speak to us, not of men, but of tea-parties. Tea-parties are the same all the world over; with the exception that, with the French, there are more lights and prettier dresses; and with us a mighty deal more tea in the pot.