consequently, when they
change a French for an English master, they continue the same tone and
manner to which they have been used, and are not a little surprised to
find themselves considered guilty of impertinence.

A French master and mistress issue their orders to their domestics with
much more familiarity than the English do; take a lively interest in
their welfare and happiness; advise them about their private concerns;
inquire into the cause of any depression of spirits, or symptom of ill
health they may observe, and make themselves acquainted with the
circumstances of those in their establishment.

This system lessens the distance maintained between masters and
servants, but does not really diminish the respect entertained by the
latter towards their employers, who generally find around them humble
friends, instead of, as with us, cold and calculating dependents, who
repay our _hauteur_ by a total indifference to our interests, and,
while evincing all the external appearance of profound respect,
entertain little of the true feeling of it to their masters.

Treating our servants as if they were automatons created solely for our
use, and who, being paid a certain remuneration for their services,
have no claim on us for kindness or sympathy, is a system very
injurious to their morals and our own interests, and requires an
amelioration. But while I deprecate the tone of familiarity that so
frequently shocks the untravelled English in the treatment of French
employers to their servants, I should like to see more kindness of
manner shewn by the English to theirs. Nowhere are servants so well
paid, clothed, fed, and lodged, as with us, and nowhere are they said
to feel so little attachment to their masters; which can only be
accounted for by the erroneous system to which I have referred.

---- came to see me to-day. He talked politics, and I am afraid went
away shocked at perceiving how little interest I took in them. I like
not political subjects in England, and avoid them whenever I can; but
here I feel very much about them, as the Irishman is said to have felt
when told that the house he was living in was on fire, and he answered
"Sure, what's that to me!--I am only a lodger!"

---- told me that France is in a very dangerous state; the people
discontented, etc. etc. So I have heard every time I have visited Paris
for the last ten years; and as to the people being discontented, when
were they otherwise I should