but merely wear caps,
consequently get very much tanned, and look old very soon: whereas the
Englishwomen preserve their appearance much longer by wearing bonnets,
and particularly pokes, which effectually shelter the face. The sun also
has more power in most parts of France, and the women work harder than
in England, therefore cannot wear so well.

Proportioned to the price of provisions, wages are higher in France than
in England; you cannot have an able bodied man in Paris, for the lowest
description of work, for less than 40 sous a day, those who are now
working at the fortifications have 50, that being the minimum, and if a
person understand any trade, 3, 4, and 5 francs are the usual prices,
and those who are considered clever at their business often get more.
But many a young man's advancement in life is impeded by the
conscription; it often occurs that an industrious shopman, or artisan,
has with economy saved some hundred francs, when he is drawn for the
army, and glad to appropriate his little savings towards procuring him
some comforts more than the common soldier is allowed; the troops
generally are very quiet and orderly behaved, in the different towns
where they are quartered, but the infantry have not a very brilliant
appearance, having found small men so very active and serviceable in
climbing the rocks, enduring fatigue, and braving all kinds of
impediments, men two inches shorter than would have before been
received, were admitted into the ranks, the consequence is that the
regiments of the line now make but a poor display, as regards the height
of the men, and indeed in their manner of marching, and carrying their
muskets, some nearly upright others more horizontally, they have not a
regular orderly appearance, like many of the other troops on the
Continent; most of the largest sized men are taken up for the cavalry,
and very well looking fellows they many of them are, particularly in
the Carabineers, which, in regard to the height of the men, is a
remarkably fine regiment, but might be much more so, if the government
paid that attention which is devoted by other powers to the selections
for their choice regiments; in the Carabineers there are men as much as
six feet three, and four, and others as short as five feet ten, whilst
in other regiments, such as the Lancers and Dragoons, they have here and
there men above six feet, which if placed in the Carabineers, and those
who were the shortest in that c