ere very evident appearances of an approaching separation. Not wishing
to augment the rupture, between two personages so necessary to each
others service, and to those who were to be benefitted by it, I begged
of my fair hostess, who, with two pretty girls (her daughters), were
picking the stalks from some strawberries, which were intended for my
desert, at the other end of the room, that she would favour me with
another knife. The maitresse d'hotel, who had a pair of fine dark
expressive eyes, very archly said, "Why would you wish to change it,
Sir? it is an english one." It certainly looked like one; no compliment
could be neater. Whether I gave it too great a latitude of
interpretation, I will not pretend to say, but it led me into such a
train of happy _comparative thinking_, that I ate my dinner with it very
comfortably, without saying another word. I have since thought, that the
maitresse d'hotel had not another knife in her house, but what was in
use.

In France, I have before had occasion to remark, that fanciful notions
of excessive delicacy, are not permitted to interfere with comfort, and
convenience. Amongst these people, every thing turns upon the principle
of accommodation. To this motive I attribute the frequent exhibition,
over the doors of respectable looking houses, in the fashionable walks,
and in different parts of Paris, of the following characters,
"Commodites pour Hommes, et Femmes." An english prude would start to
read these words. I mention this circumstance, for the purpose of
communicating some idea of the people, convinced, as I well am, that it
is only by detail, that we can become acquainted with the peculiar
characteristics of any community.

I very often passed by the ci-devant Hall of the National Convention; in
which the hapless king and queen were doomed to the scaffold, where
murder was legitimated, religion denounced, and the grave declared to be
the bed of _eternal repose_.

In vindication of the ways of eternal justice, even upon earth, this
polluted pile is participating the fate of its devoted members.

Those walls which once resounded with the florid, heightened declamation
of republican visionaries, the most worthless, imposing, and desperate
of mankind, are prevented, for a short time, by a few crazy props, from
covering the earth below with their dust and ruins. The famed temple of
the Goddess of Liberty, is not tenantable enough to cover the Babel
Deity from the peltings