yons and Marseilles, as well as other cities
of France, to prove that civilization and soldiers, however inimical
to each other, may, by the force of circumstances, be reduced to a
partnership. The question that troubles me most is to determine
precisely what is the highest condition of civilization. It can not be
to enjoy fine palaces and have a great many soldiers, for Marco Polo
tells us that the great Kubla Khan had palaces of gold and precious
stones of incredible extent and most sumptuous magnificence, such as
the world has never seen from that day to this, and could number his
troops by millions; yet nobody will undertake to say that the Tartars
of the tenth century were in advance of the French of the nineteenth
century. It can not consist in the enjoyment of freedom, and the
general dissemination of education and intelligence among the people;
for where will you find a freer or more intelligent people than those
of the United States, who are rated by the Parisians as little better
than savages? I think civilization must consist in the perfection of
cookery, and a high order of tailoring and millinery. If the French
excel in the manufacture of cannons and iron-cased ships, and devote a
good deal of attention to surgery, it is a necessity imposed upon them
by the presence of Great Britain and their natural propensity for
strong governments; but I am disposed to believe that their genius
lies in gastronomy and tailoring, and in the construction of hats and
bonnets. Since the latter articles cover the heads of the best classes
of mankind, they must be the climax or crowning feature of all human
intelligence. I am greatly puzzled by the various opinions on this
subject entertained by the most cultivated people of Europe. The
English seem to think the perfection of civilization consists in
preaching against slavery and then trying to perpetuate it, in order
to get hold of some cotton; the French in suppressing family
pamphlets, annulling the sacred contract of marriage, building
iron-cast ships, cooking frogs, snails, and cats, making fancy coats,
and topping off the human head with elegant hats and bonnets; the
Austrians in the manufacture of shin-plasters for their soldiers, and
the making and breaking of constitutions for ungovernable
dependencies; the Prussians in the blasphemous necromancy of receiving
crowns for their kings direct from God; and all in some shape or other
professing devotion to human liberty, and