time it seemed as if political events were too unsettled to make this
project advisable, on which account she asked her good friend, Dr.
Holland, of Knutsford, to propose some other plans. Very significant is
the remark she makes: "Observe that Fanny and I both prefer society,
good society, even to fine landscapes or even to volcanoes." Finally
Paris was pronounced safe, and they set out thither. It was on this
occasion, when crossing to Holyhead, that she made her first
acquaintance with a steamboat. She disliked what she called the "jigging
motion," which, she said, was like the shake felt in a carriage when a
pig is scratching himself behind the hind wheel while waiting at an
Irish inn door. Her letters to her stepmother and sisters during this
trip are frequent and detailed. At Paris they stayed some months,
establishing themselves domestically in apartments in the Place du
Palais Bourbon. "_Madame Maria Edgeworth et Mademoiselles ses soeurs_"
ran their visiting-cards, which were soon left at the best Parisian
houses. Many new friends were added to those they had previously made,
and under the changed regime the connection of Miss Edgeworth with the
Abbe Edgeworth became a passport to the homes of the old nobility. The
circumstance that Miss Edgeworth was a most accomplished French scholar,
speaking the language with as much ease as if it were her own, enabled
her thoroughly to enter into and enjoy the society that was offered her.
Her knowledge of French classic literature charmed her hosts and brought
out all their best powers of conversation. Her ready sympathy and real
interest won their hearts and induced many of them to tell her the sad
stories of their adventures in the revolutionary days. But her
intercourse was not confined to the aristocracy. Her hereditary taste
for science brought her in contact with most of the distinguished
scientific men of France, while literary society was, of course, thrown
open to her. She noticed a great alteration in manners since their last
visit:--

I should observe that a great change has taken place: the men
huddle together now in France as they used to do in England,
talking politics with their backs to the women in a corner, or even
in the middle of the room, without minding them in the least, and
the ladies complain and look very disconsolate, and many ask "If
this be Paris?" and others scream Ultra nonsense or Liberal
nonsense to make