ed amidst the apparatus of the kitchen; three or
four beds are piled one upon another to make room for as many
card-tables; and the wits of the prison, who are all the morning
employed in writing doleful placets to obtain their liberty, in the
evening celebrate the loss of it in bout-rimees and acrostics.

I saw an ass at the _Corps de Garde_ this morning laden with violins and
music, and a female prisoner seldom arrives without her complement of
bandboxes.--Embarrassed, stifled as we are by our numbers, it does not
prevent a daily importation of lap-dogs, who form as consequential a part
of the community in a prison, as in the most superb hotel. The faithful
valet, who has followed the fortunes of his master, does not so much
share his distresses as contribute to his pleasure by adorning his
person, or, rather, his head, for, excepting the article of
hair-dressing, the beaux here are not elaborate. In short, there is an
indifference, a frivolity, in the French character, which, in
circumstances like the present, appears unaccountable. But man is not
always consistent with himself, and there are occasions in which the
French are nothing less than philosophers. Under all these externals of
levity, they are a very prudent people, and though they seem to bear
with infinite fortitude many of the evils of life, there are some in
which their sensibility is not to be questioned. At the death of a
relation, or the loss of liberty, I have observed that a few hours
suffice, _pour prendre son parti;_ [To make up his mind.] but on any
occasion where his fortune has suffered, the liveliest Frenchman is _au
desespoir_ for whole days. Whenever any thing is to be lost or gained,
all his characteristic indifference vanishes, and his attention becomes
mentally concentrated, without dissipating the habitual smile of his
countenance. He may sometimes be deceived through deficiency of
judgment, but I believe not often by unguardedness; and, in a matter of
interest, a _petit maitre_ of five-and-twenty might _tout en badinage_
[All in the way of pleasantry.] maintain his ground against a whole
synagogue.--This disposition is not remarkable only in affairs that may
be supposed to require it, but extends to the minutest objects; and the
same oeconomy which watches over the mass of a Frenchman's estate,
guards with equal solicitude the menu property of a log of wood, or a
hen's nest.

There is at this moment a general scarcity of provisi