; and, with regard to
pecuniary consideration, my engagement is not an advantageous one.
--Madame Dorval, of whom I have taken the house, is a character very
common in France, and over which I was little calculated to have the
ascendant. Officiously polite in her manners, and inflexibly attentive
to her interest, she seemingly acquiesces in every thing you propose.
You would even fancy she was solicitous to serve you; yet, after a
thousand gracious sentiments, and as many implied eulogiums on her
liberality and generosity, you find her return, with unrelenting
perseverance, to some paltry proposition, by which she is to gain a few
livres; and all this so civilly, so sentimentally, and so determinedly,
that you find yourself obliged to yield, and are duped without being
deceived.

The lower class have here, as well as on your side of the water, the
custom of attributing to Ministers and Governments some connection with,
or controul over, the operations of nature. I remarked to a woman who
brings me fruit, that the grapes were bad and dear this year--_"Ah! mon
Dieu, oui, ils ne murrissent pas. Il me semble que tout va mal depuis
qu'on a invente la nation."_ ["Ah! Lord, they don't ripen now.--For my
part, I think nothing has gone well since the nation was first
invented."]

I cannot, like the imitators of Sterne, translate a chapter of sentiment
from every incident that occurs, or from every physiognomy I encounter;
yet, in circumstances like the present, the mind, not usually observing,
is tempted to comment.--I was in a milliner's shop to-day, and took
notice on my entering, that its mistress was, whilst at her work,
learning the _Marseillois_ Hymn. [A patriotic air, at this time highly
popular.] Before I had concluded my purchase, an officer came in to
prepare her for the reception of four volunteers, whom she was to lodge
the two ensuing nights. She assented, indeed, very graciously, (for a
French woman never loses the command of her features,) but a moment
after, the Marseillois, which lay on the counter, was thrown aside in a
pet, and I dare say she will not resume her patriotic taste, nor be
reconciled to the revolution, until some days after the volunteers shall
have changed their quarters.

This quartering of troops in private houses appears to me the most
grievous and impolitic of all taxes; it adds embarrassment to expence,
invades domestic comfort, and conveys such an idea of military
subjection, tha