ar.
The interruption which is given, in arbitrary governments, to the
administration of justice, by the interposition of the great, has
always a bad effect upon the morals of the common people. The peasants
too are often rendered desperate and savage, by the misery they suffer
from the oppression and tyranny of their landlords. In this
neighbourhood the labouring people are ill lodged and wretchedly fed;
and they have no idea of cleanliness. There is a substantial burgher in
the High Town, who was some years ago convicted of a most barbarous
murder. He received sentence to be broke alive upon the wheel; but was
pardoned by the interposition of the governor of the county, and
carries on his business as usual in the face of the whole community. A
furious abbe, being refused orders by the bishop, on account of his
irregular life, took an opportunity to stab the prelate with a knife,
one Sunday, as he walked out of the cathedral. The good bishop desired
he might be permitted to escape; but it was thought proper to punish,
with the utmost severity, such an atrocious attempt. He was accordingly
apprehended, and, though the wound was not mortal, condemned to be
broke. When this dreadful sentence was executed, he cried out, that it
was hard he should undergo such torments, for having wounded a
worthless priest, by whom he had been injured, while such-a-one (naming
the burgher mentioned above) lived in ease and security, after having
brutally murdered a poor man, and a helpless woman big with child, who
had not given him the least provocation.

The inhabitants of Boulogne may be divided into three classes; the
noblesse or gentry, the burghers, and the canaille. I don't mention the
clergy, and the people belonging to the law, because I shall
occasionally trouble you with my thoughts upon the religion and
ecclesiastics of this country; and as for the lawyers, exclusive of
their profession, they may be considered as belonging to one or other
of these divisions. The noblesse are vain, proud, poor, and slothful.
Very few of them have above six thousand livres a year, which may
amount to about two hundred and fifty pounds sterling; and many of them
have not half this revenue. I think there is one heiress, said to be
worth one hundred thousand livres, about four thousand two hundred
pounds; but then her jewels, her cloaths, and even her linen, are
reckoned part of this fortune. The noblesse have not the common sense
to reside at their