iegne. Gold, silver, mirrors, tapestry all hold their court
here. The bath is a perfect specimen of French luxury and magnificence.
It fills a recess in a moderately-sized room almost entirely panelled
with the finest sheets of plate glass; and the ball room is so
exquisitely beautiful that to see its golden walls and ceilings lighted
up with splendid chandeliers, and its floors graced with dancers, plumed
and jewelled, I would take the trouble of attending as your Chaperon
from Alderley whenever the Bourbons send you an invitation.

The gardens are like all other French pleasure grounds, formal and
comfortless, but there is one part you would all enjoy. When Buonaparte
first carried Marie Louise to Compiegne she expressed much satisfaction,
but remarked that it was deficient in a Berceau; it could not stand in
competition with her favourite palace of Schoenbrunn. Now, a berceau is a
wide walk covered with trellis work and flowers. She left Compiegne. In
six weeks Napoleon begged her to pay another visit. She did so, and
found a berceau wide enough for two carriages to go abreast and above
two miles in length, extending from the gardens to the forest of
Compiegne, completely finished. May you all be espoused to husbands who
will execute all your whims and fancies with equal rapidity and good
taste! In your berceau I will walk; but if you are destined to reside in
golden palaces, you must expect little of Uncle's company.

Having travelled thus far, attend us to Paris and imagine yourself
seated in a velvet chair in the Hotel de Bretagne, Rue de Richelieu,
that is to say, when translated into London terms, conceive yourself
seated in one of the Hotels in or near Covent Gardens, close to Theatre
and shops and all that a stranger wishes to be near for a week when the
sole purpose of his visit is seeing and hearing. We are within 20 yards
(but if measured by the mud and filth to be traversed in the march I
should call it a mile) of the Palais Royal, the fairy land of Paris, and
Paradise of vice, and the centre of attraction to every stranger. Here
we breakfast in Coffee-houses, of which no idea can be formed by those
who only associate the name of Coffee-house with certain subdivided,
gloomy apartments in England, where steaks and _Morning Chronicles_
reign with divided sway, and where the silence is seldom interrupted but
by queries as to the price of stocks or "Here, Waiter, another bottle of
Port."

We dine at Restaura