excellence_, of Paris, and it is to this habit, probably, that the want
of _bienseance_ so visible in Parisian _boutiquiers_, is to be
attributed.

CHAPTER IX.

An agreeable party dined here yesterday--Lord Stuart de Rothesay, our
Ambassador, the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche, the Duc de Mouchy, Sir
Francis Burdett, and Count Charles de Mornay. Lord Stuart de Rothesay
is very popular at Paris, as is also our Ambassadress; a proof that, in
addition to a vast fund of good-nature, no inconsiderable portion of
tact is conjoined--to please English and French too, which they
certainly do, requires no little degree of the rare talent of
_savoir-vivre_.

To a profound knowledge of French society and its peculiarities, a
knowledge not easily acquired, Lord and Lady Stuart de Rothesay add the
happy art of adopting all that is agreeable in its usages, without
sacrificing any of the stateliness so essential in the representatives
of our more grave and reflecting nation.

Among the peculiarities that most strike one in French people, are the
good-breeding with which they listen, without even a smile, to the
almost incomprehensible attempts at speaking French made by many
strangers, and the quickness of apprehension with which they seize
their meaning, and assist them in rendering the sense complete.

I have seen innumerable proofs of this politeness--a politeness so
little understood, or at least so little practised, among the English,
that mistakes perfectly ludicrous, and which could not have failed to
set my compatriots in a titter, if not in a roar, have not produced the
movement of a single risible muscle, and yet the French are more prone
to gaiety than are the English.

Mr. D---- and Mr. T---- dined here yesterday. The former, mild,
gentlemanlike, and unostentatious, seems to forget what so many would,
if similarly situated, remember with arrogance, namely, that he is
immensely rich; an obliviousness that, in my opinion, greatly enhances
his other merits.

Mr. T---- is little changed since I last saw him, and is well-informed,
clover, and agreeable,--but his own too-evident consciousness of
possessing these recommendations prevents other people from according
him due merit for them.

In society, one who believes himself clever must become a hypocrite,
and so conceal all knowledge of his self-complacency, if he wishes to
avoid being unpopular; for woe be to him who lets the world see he
thinks highly of himse