had also passed many years abroad, having left Liverpool the same
day the writer sailed from Portsmouth.]

The very general notion which exists in America, that the French are a
slightly-built, airy people, and that their women in particular are thin
and without _embonpoint_, is a most extraordinary one, for there is not
a particle of foundation for it. The women of Paris are about as tall as
the women of America, and, could a fair sample of the two nations be
placed in the scales, I have no doubt it would be found that the French
women would outweigh the Americans in the proportion of six to five.
Instead of being meagre, they are compactly built, with good busts,
inclining to be full, and well-limbed, as any one may see who will take
the trouble to walk the streets after a hard shower; for, as Falstaff
told Prince Henry, "You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care
not who sees your back." Indeed, I know no females to whom the opinion
which we entertain of the French women may better apply than to our own,
and yet I know none who are so generally well-looking.

The French are not a handsome nation. Personal beauty in either sex is
rare: there is a want of simplicity, of repose, of dignity, and even of
harmonious expression, what they themselves call _finesse_, in their
countenances, and yet the liveliness of the eyes and the joyous
character of their looks render them agreeable. You are not to
understand from this that great personal beauty does not exist in
France, however, for there are so many exceptions to the rule, that they
have occasionally made me hesitate about believing it a rule at all. The
French often possess a feature in great perfection that is very rare in
England, where personal beauty is so common in both sexes. It is in the
mouth, and particularly in the smile. Want of _finesse_ about the mouth
is a general European deficiency (the Italians have more of it than any
other people I know), and it is as prevalent an advantage in America.
But the races of Saxon root fail in the chin, which wants nobleness and
volume. Here it is quite common to see profiles that would seem in their
proper places on a Roman coin.

Although female beauty is not common in France, when it is found, it is
usually of a very high order. The sweet, cherub-like, guileless
expression that belongs to the English female face, and through it to
the American, is hardly ever, perhaps never, met with here. The French
countenanc