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Besides the great number of coaches of the gentry, here are also coaches de Remise, by the month, which are very well gilt, neat harness, and good horses: and these all strangers hire by the day or month, at about three crowns English a day. 'Tis this sort that spoils the hackneys and chairs, which here are the most nasty and miserable voiture than can be; and yet near as dear again as in London, and but very few of them neither.

Yet there is one more in this city which I was willing to omit, as thinking it at first sight scandalous, and a very jest; it being a wretched business in so magnificent a city; and that is the Vinegrette, a coach on two wheels, dragged by a man, and pushed behind by a woman or boy, or both.

Besides those, for quick travelling there are a great number of post-chaises for a single person: and Roullions for two persons; these are on two wheels only, and have each their double springs to make them very easy; they run very swiftly; both the horses pull; but one only is in the thilles. The coachman mounts the Roullion; but for the chaise, he only mounts the side horse. I think neither of these are in use in England; but might be introduced to good purpose.

As for their recreations and walks, there are no people more fond of coming together to see and to be seen. This conversation without doubt takes up a great part of their time: and for this purpose, the Cour de la Reyne is frequented by all people of quality. It is a treble walk of trees of a great length, near the river side, the middle walk having above double the breadth to the two side ones; and will hold eight files of coaches, and in the middle a great open circle to turn, with fine gates at both ends. Those that would have better and freer air, go further, and drive into the Bois de Bologne, other out of other parts of the town to Bois de Vincennes, scarce any side amiss. In like manner these persons light and walk in the Tuilleries, Luxembourg, and other gardens, belonging to the crown and princes (all which are very spacious) and are made convenient, with many seats for the entertainment of all people; the lacquies and mob excepted. But of this more hereafter.

No sort of people make a better figure in the town than the bishops, who have very splendid equipages, and variety of fine liveries, being most of them men of great families, and preferred as such, learning not being so necessary a qualification for those dignities as with us; though there are some of them very deserving and learned men. I say, they are most noblemen, or the younger sons of the best families. This indeed is for the honour of the church; but whether it be for the good of learning and piety is doubtful. They may be patrons, but there are but few examples of erudition among them. 'Tis to be wished that they exceeded others in merit, as they do in birth.

The abbots here are numerous from all parts of the kingdom. They make a considerable figure, as being a genteel sort of clergy, and the most learned; at least were so from the time of cardinal Richelieu, who preferred men of the greatest learning and parts to these posts; and that very frankly, and without their knowing it before-hand, much less soliciting him for it. He took a sure way, peculiar to himself to inquire out privately men of desert, and took his own time to prefer them. This filled the kingdom of France with learned men, and gave great encouragement to study; whereof France has yet some feeling.

'Tis pretty to observe, how the king disciplines this great city, by small instances of obedience. He caused them to take down all their signs at once, and not to advance them above a foot or two from the wall, nor to exceed such a small measure of square; which was readily done: so that the signs obscure not the streets at all, and make little or no figure, as though there were none; being placed very high and little.

There are great number of hostels in Paris, by which word is meant public inns, where lodgings are let; and also the noblemen and gentlemen's houses are so called, mostly with titles over the gate in letters of gold on a black marble. This seems as it were, to denote that they came at first to Paris as strangers only, and inned publicly; but at length built them inns or houses of their own. It is certain, a great and wealthy city cannot be without people of quality; nor such a court as that of France without the daily inspection of what such people do. But whether the country can spare them or not, I question. The people of England seem to have less manners and less religion, where the gentry have left them wholly to themselves; and the taxes are raised with more difficulty, inequality, and injustice, than when the landlords live upon the desmaines.

It may very well be, that Paris is in a manner a new city within this forty years. It is certain since this king came to the crown, it is so much altered for the better, that it is quite another thing; and if it be true what the workmen told me, that a common house, built of rough stone and plaistered over, would not last above twentyfive years, the greatest part of the city has been lately re-built. In this age certainly most of the great hostels are built, or re-edified; in like manner the convents, the bridges and churches, the gates of the city; add the great alteration of the streets, the keys upon the river, the pavements; all these have had great additions, or are quite new.

In the river amongst the bridges, both above and below, are a vast number of boats, of wood, hay, charcoal, corn, and wine, and other commodities. But when a sudden thaw comes, they are often in danger of being split and crushed to pieces upon the bridges; which also are sometimes damaged by them. There have been great losses to the owners of such boats and goods.

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It has been proposed to dig near the city a large basin for a winter harbour; but this has not had the face of profit to the government; so they are still left to execute their own project. There are no laws or project so effectual here, what bring profit to the government. Farming is admirably well understood here. Amongst the living objects to be seen in the streets of Paris, the counsellors and chief officers of the courts of justice make a great figure; they and their wives have their trains carried up; so there are abundance to be seen walking about the streets in this manner. It is for this that places of that nature sell so well. A man that has a right to qualify a wife with this honour, shall command a fortune; and the carrying a great velvet cushion to church is such another business. The place of a lawyer is valued a third part dearer for this.

Here are also daily to be seen in the streets great variety of monks, in strange unusual habits to us Englishmen; these make an odd figure, and furnish well a picture. I cannot but pity the mistaken zeal of these poor men; that put themselves into religion, as they call it, and renounce the world, and submit themselves to most severe rules of living and diet; some of the orders are decently enough clothed, as the Jesuits, the fathers of the oratory, &c. but most are very particular and obsolete in their dress, as being the rustic habit of old times, without linen, or ornaments of the present age.

As to their meagre diet, it is much against nature, and the improved diet of mankind. The Mosaic law provided much better for Jews, a chosen people; that was instituted for cleanliness and health. Now for the Christian law, though it commands humility and patience under sufferings, and mortification and abstinence from sinful lusts and pleasures; yet by no means a distinct food, but liberty to eat any thing whatsoever, much less nastiness; and the papists themselves in other things are of this mind; for their churches are clean, pompously adorned and perfumed. It is enough, if we chance to suffer persecution, to endure it with patience, and all the miserable circumstances that attend it; but wantonly to persecute oursleves, is to do violence to Christianity, and to put ourselves in a worse state than the Jews were; for to choose the worst of food, which is sour herbs and fish, and such like trash, and to lie worse, always rough, in course and nasty woollen frocks upon boards; to go barefoot in a cold country, to deny themselves the comforts of this life, and the conversation of men; this, I say, is to hazard our healths, to renounce the greatest blessings of this life, and in a manner to destroy ourselves. These men, I say, cannot but be in the main chagrin, and therefore as they are out of humour with the world, so they must in time be weary of such slavish and fruitless devotion, which is not attended with an active life.

The great multitude of poor wretches in all parts of this city is such, that a man in a coach, a-foot, in the shop, is not able to do any business for the numbers and importunities of beggars; and to hear their miseries is very lamentable; and if you give to one, you immediately bring a whole swarm upon you. These, I say, are true monks, if you will, of God Almighty's making, offering you their prayers for a farthing, that find the evil of the day sufficient for the day, and that the miseries of this life are not to be courted, or made a mock of. These worship, much against their will, all rich men, and make saints of the rest of mankind for a morsel of bread.

But let these men alone with their mistaken zeal; it is certainly God's good Providence which orders all things in this world. And the flesh-eaters will ever defend themselves, if not beat the Lenten men; good and wholesome food, and plenty of it, gives men naturally great courage. Again, a nation will sooner be peopled by the free marriage of all sorts of people, than by the additional stealth of a few starved monks, supposing them at any time to break their vow. This limiting of marriage to a certain people only is a deduction and abatement of mankind, not less in a papist country than a constant war. Again, this lessens also the number of God's worshippers, instead of multiplying them as the stars in the firmament, or the sand upon the sea shore; these men willfully cut off their posterity, and reduce God's congregation for the future.

There is very little noise in this city of public cries of things to be sold, or any disturbance from pamphlets and hawkers. One thing I wondered at, that I heard of nothing lost, nor any public advertisement, till I was shewed printed papers upon the corners of streets, wherein were in great letters, Un, Deux, Cinq, Dix jusq; a Cinquante Louis a gagner, that is, from one to fifty louis to be got; and then underneath an ac count of what was lost. This sure is a good and quiet way; for by this means without noise you often find your goods again; every body that has found them repairing in a day or two to such places. The gazettes come out but once a week, and but few people buy them.

It is difficult and dangerous to vend a libel here. While we were in town, a certain person gave a bundle of them to a blind man, a beggar of the hospital of the Quinzevint, telling him he might get five pence for every penny; he went to Nostredame, and cried them up in the service time; La Vie & Miracles de l'Evesq; de Rheims. This was a trick that was played the archbishop, as it was thought, by the Jesuits, with whom he has had a great contest about Molinas, the Spanish J. doctrines. The libel went off at any rate, when the first buyers had read the title further, and found they were against the present archbishop, duke, and first peer of France.

The streets are lighted alike all the winter long, as well when the moon shines, as at other times of the month; which I remember the rather, because of the impertinent usage of our people at London, to take away the lights for half of the month, as though the moon was certain to shine and light the streets, and that there could be no cloudy weather in winter. The lanthorns here hang down in the very middle of all the streets, about twenty paces distance, and twenty foot high. They are made of a square of glass about two feet deep, covered with a broad plate of iron; and the rope that lets them down, is secured and locked up in an iron funnel and little trunk fastened into the wall of the house. These lanthorns have candles of four in the pound in them, which last burning till after midnight.

As to these lights, if any man break them, he is forthwith sent to the gallies; and there were three young gentlemen of good families, who were in prison for having done it in a frolic, and could not be released thence in some months, and that not without the diligent application of good friends at court.

The lights at Paris for five months in the year only, cost near 50,0001. sterling. This way of lighting the streets is in use also in some other cities in France. The king is said to have raised a large tax by it. In the preface to the tax it is said, " that considering the great danger his subjects were in, in walking the streets in the dark, from thieves, and the breaking their necks by falls, he for such a sum of money did grant this privilege, that they might hang out lanthorns in this manner."

I have said, that the avenues to the city, and all the streets, are paved with a very hard sand stone, about eight inches square; so they have a great care to keep them clean; in winter, for example, upon the melting of the ice, by a heavy drag with a horse, which makes a quick riddance and cleaning the gutters; so that in a day's time all parts of the town are to admiration clean and neat again to walk on.

I could heartily wish their summer cleanliness was as great; it is certainly as necessary to keep so populous a city sweet; but I know no machine sufficient, but what would empty it of the people too; all the threats and inscriptions upon walls are to little purpose. The dust in London in summer is oftentimes, if a wind blow, very troublesome, if not intolerable; in Paris there is much less of it, and the reason is, the flat stones require little sand to set them fast, whereas our small pebbles, not coming together, require a vast quantity to lay them fast in paving.

But from the people in the streets, to the dead ornaments there. There are an infinite number of bustos of the grand monarch every where put up by the common people; but the noble statues are but few, considering the obsequious humour and capacity of the people to perform.

That in the Place-Victoire is a foot in brass, all over gilt, with Victoire, that is a vast winged woman close behind his back, holding forth a laurel crown over the king's head, with one foot upon a globe. There are great exceptions taken at the gilding by artists; and indeed the shining seems to spoil the features, and give I know not what confusion; it had better have been all of gold brassed over; which would have given its true lights and shadows, and suffered the eye to judge of the proportions. But that which I like not in this, is the great woman perpetually at the king's back; which is a sort of embarras, and instead of giving victory, seems to tire him with her company. The Roman victory was a little puppet in the emperor's hand, which he could dispose of at pleasure. This woman is enough to give a man a surfeit.

The other are statues of three of the last kings of France, in brass on horseback. That on the Pont-neuf is of Henry the Fourth in his armour bare-headed, and habited as the mode of that time was.

The other of Lewis the Thirteenth in the Palace-Royal, armed also after the mode of the age, and his plume of feathers on his head-piece.

The third is of this present king Louis the Fourteenth, and designed for the Place Vendosme. This colossus of brass is yet in the very place, where it was cast; it is surprisingly great, being 22 feet high, the feet of the king 26 inches in length, and all the proportions of him and the horse suitable. There was 100,000 pound weight of metal melted, but it took not up above 80,000 pounds; it was all cast at once, horse and man. Monsieur Girardon told me, he wrought diligently, and with almost daily application at the model eight years, and there were two years more spent in the moulding, and furnaces, and casting of it. The king is in the habit of a Roman emperor, without stirrups or saddle, and on his head a French large periwig a-la-mode. Whence this great liberty of sculpture arises, I am much to seek.

It is true, that in building precisely to follow the ancient manner and simplicity is very commendable, because all those orders were founded upon good principles in mathematics: but the clothing of an emperor was no more than the weak fancy of the people. For Louis le Grand to be thus dressed up at the head of his army now a-days would be very comical. What need other emblems, when truth may be had; as though the present age need be ashamed of their modes, or that the Statua Equestris of Henry IV, or Louis XIII, were the less to be valued for being done in the true dress of their times. It seems to me to be the effect of mistaken flattery; but if regarded only as a piece of mere art, it is methinks very unbecoming, and has no graceful air with it.

I remember I was at the levee of king Charles II, when three models were brought him to choose one of, in order to make his statue for the court at Windsor; he chose the Roman emperor's dress, and caused it also to be executed in that other erected for him in the old Exchange in London. The like is of king James in Whitehall, and at Chelsea college, our invalids. Now I appeal to all mankind, whether in representing a living prince now-a-days, these naked arms and legs are decent, and whether there is not a barbarity very displeasing in it. The father of these two kings, Charles I, was the prince of this age of the best relish, and of a sound judgment, particularly in painting, sculpture, architecture by sea and land, witness the vast sums of money he bestowed upon Rubens and his disciple Vandyke. Also the great esteem he had for the incomparable Inigo Jones, who was the first Englishman in this age that understood building. I heard M. Auzout say, when he had viewed the banquetting-house at Whitehall, that it was preferable to all the buildings on this side the Alps; and I ought to believe him, he having studied Vetruvius more than forty years together, and much upon the place at Rome. Also the ship the Sovereign, which was truly the noblest floating castle that ever swam the sea. Yet after all this, that king had a Statua Equestris of himself erected, now at Charing-cross, cast in the full habit of his own time, and which I think may compare with the best of that sort at Paris.

I should beg leave in the next place to visit the palaces and men of letters and con versation; but I must take notice first of the vast expences that are here in iron balustrades, as in the Place-Royal, which square is compassed about with one of ten feet high. Of this sort and better there are infinite every where in Paris; which gives indeed a full view of the beauty of their gardens and courts.

First, therefore, I saw the Palais Mazarin, in which are many good pictures, but the low gallery is furnished with a great collection of ancient Greek and Roman statues, and is what I most took notice of. They were most brought from Rome by the cardinal. Those which are togatæ and clothed, are as they were found; but such as were made nudæ or naked, are miserably disguised by the fond humour of the duke de Mazarin, who in a hot fit of devotion caused them to be castrated and mangled, and then frocked them by a sad hand with I know what plaister of Paris, which makes them very ridiculous. Cicero somewhere tells us, that some of the ancient wise men thought there was nothing naturally obscene, but that every thing might be called by its own name; but our Celsus is of another mind, and begs pardon, being a Roman, that he wrote of these things in his own tongue. It is certain upon our subject, the duke should not have furnished his cabinet and gallery with naked pictures, but with the togatæ only; or if it had once pleased him to do otherwise, he should not have clothed them; which was at best but a vain ostentation of his chastity, and betrayed his ignorance and

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