prevailed at that time in France:--

"Une fille de dix ans, que la gouvernante faisoit passer pour sa
niece, en depit de la medisance, vint ouvrir; et comme nous lui
demandions si l'on pouvoit parler au chanoine, la dame Jacinte
parut. C'etoit une personne deja parvenue a l'age de discretion,
mais belle encore; et j'admirai particulierement la fraicheur de
son teint. Elle portoit une longue robe d'un etoffe de laine la
plus commune, avec une large ceinture de cuir, d'ou pendoit d un
cote un trousseau de clefs, et de l'autre un chapelet a gros
grains"--"Rosario de cuentas gordas."--_Lib. II._ _c._ 1.

This is an exact description of a class of women well known in Spain by
the name Beata, but utterly unknown in France till the Soeurs de
Charite were instituted:--

"Pendant qu'ils etoient ensemble j'entendis sonner midi. Comme je
savois que les secretaires et les commis quittoient a cette heure
la leurs bureaux, pour aller diner ou il leur plaisoit, je laissai
la mon chef-d'oeuvre, et sortis pour me rendre, non chez
Monteser, parcequ'il m'avoit paye mes appointemens, et que j'avois
pris conge de lui, mais chez le plus fameux traiteur du quartier de
la cour."-_Lib. III._

During the reign of Philip III. and Philip IV., and even till the time
of Charles IV., twelve was the common hour of dinner, and all the public
offices were closed: this is very unlike the state of things in Paris
during the reign of Louis XV., when this romance was published.

In Spain, owing in part to the hospitality natural to unsettled times
and a simple people, in part to the few strangers who visited the
Peninsula, inns were for a long time almost unknown, and the occupation
of an innkeeper, who sold what his countrymen were delighted to give,
was considered degrading: so dishonourable indeed was it looked upon,
that where an executioner could not be found to carry the sentence of
the law into effect upon a criminal, the innkeeper was compelled to
perform his functions: therefore the innkeepers, like usurers and other
persons, who follow a pursuit hostile to public opinion, were profligate
and rapacious. Don Quixote teems with instances to this effect; and
there are other allusions to the same circumstance in _Gil Blas_. It
must be observed that if M. Le Sage stumbled by accident upon so great a
peculiarity, he was fortunate; and if it was suggested to him by his ow