The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.Carr, John, Sir
History
The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.
Carr, John, Sir
France -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
Here I found a large bourgeois party enjoying themselves, after the
labours of the day, with the waltz, and their favourite beverage,
lemonade. A stranger is always surprised at beholding the grace, and
activity, which even the lowest orders of people in France, display in
dancing. Whiskered corporals, in thick dirty boots, and young tradesmen,
in long great coats, led off their respective femmes de chambre and
grisettes, with an elegance, which is not to be surpassed in the
jewelled birth night ball room. Nothing could exceed the sprightly
carelessness, and gay indifference which reigned throughout. The music
in this place, as in every other of a similar description, was
excellent.
The french police, notwithstanding the invidious rumours which have been
circulated to its prejudice, is the constant subject of admiration with
every candid foreigner, who is enabled under the shelter of its
protection, to perambulate in safety every part of Paris, and its
suburbs, although badly lighted, at that hour of the night, which in
England, seldom fails to expose the unwary wanderer to the pistol of the
prowling ruffian. An enlightened friend of mine, very shrewdly observed,
that the english police seems to direct its powers, and consideration
more to the apprehension of the robber, than to the prevention of the
robbery. In no country is the _art_ of thief catching carried higher,
than in England. In France, the police is in the highest state of
respectability, and unites force to vigilance. The depredator who is
fortunate enough to escape the former, is seldom able to elude the
latter.
The grand National Library of Paris, is highly deserving of a visit, and
is considered to be the first of its kind in Europe. In one of the rooms
is a museum of antiques. The whole is about to be removed to the old
palace. In one of the wings of this noble collection, are the two
celebrated great globes, which rest upon the ground, and rise through
the flooring of the first story, where there is a railing round them.
These globes I should suppose to be about eighteen feet high.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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