h is the effect of
necessity. All my remarks of this kind are made after an unprejudiced
comparison of the people of the same rank or fortune in the two
countries;--yet even the most liberal examination must end by concluding,
that the oeconomy of the French too nearly approaches to meanness, and
that their civility is ostentatious, perhaps often either interested, or
even verbal.

You already exclaim, why, in the year 1793, you are characterizing a
nation in the style of Salmon! and implying a panegyric on the moral of
the School for Scandal! I plead to the first part of the charge, and
shall hereafter defend my opinion against the more polished writers who
have succeeded Salmon. For the moral of the School for Scandal, I have
always considered it as the seal of humanity on a comedy which would
otherwise be perfection.

It is not the oeconomy of the French that I am censuring, but their
vanity, which, engrossing all their means of expence, prefers show to
accommodation, and the parade of a sumptuous repast three or four times a
year to a plainer but more frequent hospitality.--I am far from being the
advocate of extravagance, or the enemy of domestic order; and the
liberality which is circumscribed only by prudence shall not find in me a
censurer.

My ideas on the French character and manner of living may not be unuseful
to such of my countrymen as come to France with the project of retrieving
their affairs; for it is very necessary they should be informed, that it
is not so much the difference in the price of things, which makes a
residence here oeconomical, as a conformity to the habits of the country;
and if they were not deterred by a false shame from a temporary adoption
of the same system in England, their object might often be obtained
without leaving it. For this reason it may be remarked, that the English
who bring English servants, and persist in their English mode of living,
do not often derive very solid advantages from their exile, and their
abode in France is rather a retreat from their creditors than the means
of paying their debts.

Adieu.--You will not be sorry that I have been able for a moment to
forget our personal sufferings, and the miserable politics of the
country. The details of the former are not pleasant, and the latter grow
every day more inexplicable.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Residence in France During the Years
1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Part II., 179