iz.: the _Grand Theatre_, situated near
the _Hotel de Ville_, and the smaller one called the _Theatre des
Celestins_. At the former was some good dancing, and at the latter I was
engaged in a conversation which I cannot forbear citing as it will serve to
show the dislike the people have to the feudal system and the dread they
have of its re-establishment, tho' they can know nothing about it except by
tradition. The piece performed was called _Le petit Poucet_ (Tom Thumb and
the Ogre); but I missed my old acquaintance the Ogre and his seven-league
boots of Mother Goose, and found that in this melodrama he was transformed
into a tyrannical and capricious _Seigneur Feodal_. There was a very pretty
young lady about 16 years of age accompanied by her father in the same box
with me, and I observed to her, "Ou est donc l'Ogre? il parait que l'on en
a fait un Seigneur feodal." "Oui, monsieur (she replied), et avec raison,
car ils etaient bien les Ogres de ce temps la." I entered into a long
conversation with my fair neighbour and found her well informed and well
educated, with great good sense and knowledge of the world far beyond her
years. She told me that she had begun to study English and that her father
was a miniature painter. I took leave of her not without feeling much
affected and my heart not a little "percosso dall' amoroso strale."

I must not forget to mention that there is a most spacious and magnificent
building on the _Quai du Rhone_ to the North of the bridge, which serves as
a cafe and ridotto or assembly room for balls, etc. I am afraid to say how
many feet it has in length; but it is the most superb establishment of the
kind I have ever met with.

Fortunately for the city of Lyons, the famous decree of Robespierre for
its destruction, and the column with the inscription, "Lyon a porte les
armes contre la liberte; Lyon n'est plus," which was to occupy its place,
was never put in execution and tho' this city suffered much from
revolutionary vandalism yet it soon recovered and has flourished ever since
in a manner unheard of at any former period. No people are more sensible
than the Lyonnese of the great benefits produced by the Revolution, and no
people more deprecate a return to the _ancien regime_.

Oct. 2nd, GENEVA.

I started in the diligence for Geneva on the 28th Sept. and found it
exceedingly cold on ascending the mountain called the _Cerdon_; the scenery
is savage and wild, and the road in many par