THE _French_ are certainly misunderstood:——but whether the fault is
theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with
that exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point
of such importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested
by us——or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not
understanding their language always so critically as to know “what they
would be at”——I shall not decide; but ’tis evident to me, when they
affirm, “_That they who have seen_ Paris, _have seen every thing_,”
they must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light.
As for candle-light—I give it up——I have said before, there was no
depending upon it—and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and
shades are too sharp—or the tints confounded—or that there is neither
beauty or keeping, &c. . . . for that’s not truth—but it is an
uncertain light in this respect, That in all the five hundred grand
Hôtels, which they number up to you in _Paris_—and the five hundred
good things, at a modest computation (for ’tis only allowing one good
thing to a Hôtel), which by candle-light are best to be _seen, felt,
heard_, and _understood_ (which, by the bye, is a quotation from
_Lilly_)——the devil a one of us out of fifty, can get our heads fairly
thrust in amongst them.
This is no part of the _French_ computation: ’tis simply this,
That by the last survey taken in the year one thousand seven hundred
and sixteen, since which time there have been considerable
augmentations, _Paris_ doth contain nine hundred streets; (viz)
In the quarter called the _City_—there are
fifty-three streets.
In St. _James_ of the Shambles,
fifty-five streets.
In St. _Oportune_, thirty-four streets.
In the quarter of the _Louvre_,
twenty-five streets.
In the _Palace Royal_, or St. _Honorius_,
forty-nine streets.
In _Mont. Martyr_, forty-one streets.
In St. _Eustace_, twenty-nine streets.
In the _Halles_, twenty-seven streets.
In St. _Dennis_, fifty-five streets.
In St. _Martin_, fifty-four streets.
In St. _Paul_, or the _Mortellerie_,
twenty-seven streets.
The _Greve_, thirty-eight streets.
In St. _Avoy_, or the _Verrerie_,
nineteen streets.
In the _Marais_, or the _Temple_,
fifty-two streets.
In St. _Antony_’s, sixty-eight streets.
In the _Place Maubert_, eighty-one streets.
In St. _Bennet_, sixty streets.
In St. _Andrews de Arcs_, fifty-one streets.
In the quarter of the _Luxembourg_,
sixty-two streets.
And in that of St. Germain, fifty-five streets, into any of which you
may walk; and that when you have seen them with all that belongs to
them, fairly by day-light—their gates, their bridges, their squares,
their statues - - - and have crusaded it moreover, through all their
parish-churches, by no means omitting St. _Roche_ and _Sulpice_ - - -
and to crown all, have taken a walk to the four palaces, which you may
see, either with or without the statues and pictures, just as you
chuse—
——Then you will have seen——
——but ’tis what no one needeth to tell you, for you will read of it
yourself upon the portico of the _Louvre_, in these words,
[35]EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS!—NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A TOWN