more. We play
ecarte with Monsieur de Trefle every night; but what know we of the
heart of the man--of the inward ways, thoughts, and customs of Trefle?
If we have good legs, and love the amusement, we dance with Countess
Flicflac, Tuesday's and Thursdays, ever since the Peace; and how far are
we advanced in acquaintance with her since we first twirled her round a
room? We know her velvet gown, and her diamonds (about three-fourths of
them are sham, by the way); we know her smiles, and her simpers, and
her rouge--but no more: she may turn into a kitchen wench at twelve on
Thursday night, for aught we know; her voiture, a pumpkin; and her gens,
so many rats: but the real, rougeless, intime Flicflac, we know not.
This privilege is granted to no Englishman: we may understand the French
language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can penetrate
into Flicflac's confidence: our ways are not her ways; our manners
of thinking, not hers: when we say a good thing, in the course of the
night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac will trill you off
fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the betise of the Briton, who has
never a word to say. We are married, and have fourteen children, and
would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our
own wife. If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day after her
marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool. We won't
play at ecarte with Trefle on Sunday nights; and are seen walking, about
one o'clock (accompanied by fourteen red-haired children, with fourteen
gleaming prayer-books), away from the church. "Grand Dieu!" cries
Trefle, "is that man mad? He won't play at cards on a Sunday; he goes to
church on a Sunday: he has fourteen children!"

Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our argument,
which is, that with our English notions and moral and physical
constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become intimate
with our brisk neighbors; and when such authors as Lady Morgan and
Mrs. Trollope, having frequented a certain number of tea-parties in the
French capital, begin to prattle about French manners and men,--with all
respect for the talents of those ladies, we do believe their information
not to be worth a sixpence; they speak to us not of men but of
tea-parties. Tea-parties are the same all the world over; with the
exception that, with the French, there are more lights and prettier
dresses; and with us, a mighty