tely trying to investigate the nature of the charm which
renders Paris so favourite a sojourn of the English.

"In point of gaiety (for gaiety read dissipation) it affords nothing
comparable with that of London. A few ministerial fetes every winter
may perhaps exceed in brilliancy the balls given in our common routine
of things; but for one entertainment in Paris at least thirty take place
_chez nous_. Society is established with us on a wider and more
splendid scale. The weekly _soirees_, on the other hand, which properly
represent the society of this place, are dull, meagre, and formal to the
last degree of formality. There is no brilliant point of reunion as at
Almack's,--no theatre uniting, like our Italian Opera, the charm of the
best company, the best music, and the best dancing. Of the thousand and
one theatres boasted of by the Parisians, only three are of a nature to
be frequented by people of consideration, the remainder being as much
out of the question as the Pavilion or the Garrick. Dinner parties
there are none; water parties none; _dejeuners_, unless given by a
foreign ambassadress, none. A thousand accessories to London amusements
are here wanting. In the month of May, I am told, the public gardens
and the Bois de Boulogne become enchanting. But what is not charming in
the month of May? Paris, perhaps, least of all places; for at the
commencement of the month every French family of note quits the
metropolis for its country seat, or for sea or mineral bathing.
Foreigners and the mercantile and ministerial classes alone remain.
What, then, I would fain discover, constitutes the peculiar merit of
inducing persons uninstigated by motives of economy to fix themselves in
the comfortless and filthy city, and call it Paradise? Alas! my
solution of the problem is far from honourable to the taste of our
absentees. _In Paris people are far less amenable than in London to the
tribunal of public opinion_; or, as a lady once very candidly said to
me, `One gets rid of one's friends and relations.'"

Indeed, there are so many petty annoyances and vexatious of life
attendant upon residents abroad, that it must require some strong
motives to induce them to remain. Wherever the English settle they
raise the price of everything, much to the annoyance of the _rentiers_
and respectable people of the place, although of advantage to the
country generally. The really highbred and aristocratic people will not
assoc