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 everything_,” 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 argumentations,
_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,
[7.3]EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS! --NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A TOWN
AS PARIS IS! --SING, DERRY, DERRY, DOWN.
The _French_ have a _gay_ way of treating everything that is Great; and
that is all can be said upon it.
[Footnote 7.3:
Non orbis gentem, non urbem gens habet ullam
--------ulla parem.]