,
with the feet on either side occasionally, according as the wind blows,
so that sometimes the right and sometimes the left hand guides the
beast: but in other parts of France, as well as in Italy, the ladies
sit on horseback with their legs astride, and are provided with drawers
for that purpose.

When I said the French people were kept in good humour by the fopperies
of their religion, I did not mean that there were no gloomy spirits
among them. There will be fanatics in religion, while there are people
of a saturnine disposition, and melancholy turn of mind. The character
of a devotee, which is hardly known in England, is very common here.
You see them walking to and from church at all hours, in their hoods
and long camblet cloaks, with a slow pace, demure aspect, and downcast
eye. Those who are poor become very troublesome to the monks, with
their scruples and cases of conscience: you may see them on their
knees, at the confessional, every hour in the day. The rich devotee has
her favourite confessor, whom she consults and regales in private, at
her own house; and this spiritual director generally governs the whole
family. For my part I never knew a fanatic that was not an hypocrite at
bottom. Their pretensions to superior sanctity, and an absolute
conquest over all the passions, which human reason was never yet able
to subdue, introduce a habit of dissimulation, which, like all other
habits, is confirmed by use, till at length they become adepts in the
art and science of hypocrisy. Enthusiasm and hypocrisy are by no means
incompatible. The wildest fanatics I ever knew, were real sensualists
in their way of living, and cunning cheats in their dealings with
mankind.

Among the lower class of people at Boulogne, those who take the lead,
are the sea-faring men, who live in one quarter, divided into classes,
and registered for the service of the king. They are hardy and
raw-boned, exercise the trade of fishermen and boatmen, and propagate
like rabbits. They have put themselves under the protection of a
miraculous image of the Virgin Mary, which is kept in one of their
churches, and every year carried in procession. According to the
legend, this image was carried off, with other pillage, by the English,
when they took Boulogne, in the reign of Henry VIII. The lady, rather
than reside in England, where she found a great many heretics, trusted
herself alone in an open boat, and crossed the sea to the road of
Boulogne,