is, my first essay
in French criminal justice. So many eulogiums have been passed on the
police, that I was not prepared to find this indifference to an offence
like that of wantonly cutting the reins of a spirited cabriolet horse,
in the streets of Paris; for such was the charge on which the man stood
committed. I mentioned the affair to a friend, and he said that the
police was good only for political offences, and that the government
rather leaned to the side of the rabble, in order to find support with
them, in the event of any serious movement. This, you will remember, was
the opinion of a Frenchman, and not mine; for I only relate the facts
(one conjecture excepted), and to do justice to all parties, it is
proper to add that my friend is warmly opposed to the present _regime_.

I have uniformly found the gendarmes civil, and even obliging; and I
have seen them show great forbearance on various occasions. As to the
marvellous stories we have heard of the police of Paris, I suspect they
have been gotten up for effect, such things being constantly practised
here. One needs be behind the curtain, in a great many things, to get a
just idea of the true state of the world. A laughable instance has just
occurred, within my knowledge, of a story that has been got up for
effect. The town was quite horrified lately, with an account, in the
journals, of a careless nurse permitting a child to fall into the
_fosse_ of the great bears, in the Jardin des Plantes, and of the bears
eating up the dear little thing, to the smallest fragment, before
succour could be obtained. Happening to be at the garden soon after, in
the company of one connected with the establishment, I inquired into the
circumstances, and was told that the nurses were very careless with the
children, and that the story was published in order that the bears
should not eat up any child hereafter, rather than because they had
eaten up a child heretofore!

LETTER XVIII.

Personal Intercourse.--Parisian Society and Hospitality.--Influence of
Money.--Fiacres.--M. de Lameth.--Strife of Courtesy.--Standard of
Delicacy.--French Dinners.--Mode of Visiting.--The Chancellor of
France.--The Marquis de Marbois.--Political Coteries.--Paris Lodgings.
--A French Party.--An English Party.--A splendid Ball.--Effects of good
Breeding.--Characteristic Traits.--Influence of a Court.

To MRS. POMEROY, COOPERSTOWN.

I have said very little, in my previous letters, on the su