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446 FRANCE.

objects as the prevailing factions in the capital deem most suitable to their purposes.

As I spent but one week in Paris, and as that city has be- come familiar to most English readers as well as travellers, I forbear to give any account of the.exhibitions that are dis- played there. Among the natives[ mixed but little, and will not give the crude opinions I heard on the state of society, or on political affairs, because the few I conversed with, were much too vehement in their party feelings, to be relied on as authority for the simplest facts.

The country between Paris and Calais is certainly better in appearance, than that which[had passed through in my way to the capital; here and there a respectable house is visible, and, I think, five or six new ones were built, or building, in a space a hundred and fifty miles in extent; but there was the same absence of intercourse on the road, though relieved by a few carriages posting on it, which, from their neatness, and the dresses of the servants, were apparently English. The filthiness of the villages, the clothing of the inhabitants, and the numerous beggars, were nearly as disgusting as those have already noticed.

The contrast between Germany and France is great, but on landing at Dover, and proceeding to Canterbury, and from thence to London, no Englishman can fail to be proud of his country, when he compares it with that from which it is sepa- rated but by a few hours’ saïling.