tle yet not dull:
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

The Seine is narrow, and very dirty; its waters, which are finely
filtrated when drawn from the fountains of Paris, produce an aperient
effect upon strangers, who are generally cautioned not to drink much of
them at a time.

The tide does not reach further than several miles below Paris; to this
cause I can alone attribute, though perhaps the reason is insufficient,
that the river is never rendered gay by the passing, and repassing of
beautiful pleasure boats, to the delights of which the parisians seem
total strangers. Its shores are sadly disfigured by a number of black,
gloomy, and unwieldy sheds, which are erected upon barges, for the
accommodation of the washerwomen, who, by their mode of washing, which
is, by rubbing the linen in the river water, and beating it with large
flat pieces of wood, resembling battledores, until the dirt, and
generally a portion of the linen retire together, make a noise very
similar to that of shipwrights caulking a vessel. This is an abominable
nuisance, and renders the view up the river, from the centre of the Pont
de la Concorde, the most complete melange of filth and finery, meanness
and magnificence I ever beheld. Whilst I am speaking of these valuable,
but noisy dames, I must mention that their services are chiefly confined
to strangers, and the humbler class of parisians. The genteel families
of France are annoyed by the unpleasant domestic occurrence of washing,
when in town only once, and when in the country only twice in the course
of the year. Their magazines of clothes are of course immense, for the
reception and arrangement of which several rooms in their houses are
always allotted. It is the intention of the first consul gradually to
unkennel this clattering race of females, when it can be done with
safety. To force them to the tub, and to put them into the suds too
suddenly, might, from their influence amongst the lower classes of
citizens, be followed by consequences not very congenial to the repose
of the government.

To show of what importance the ladies of the lower class in Paris are, I
shall relate a little anecdote of Bonaparte, in which he is considered
to have exhibited as much bravery as he ever displayed in the field of
battle.

The poissardes, whose name alone will awaken some emotion in the mind of
the reader, from its horrible union with the barbarous massacres which
discoloured the c