coaches than men. The women in general dress in sacs, flat hoops of
five yards wide, nosegays of artificial flowers on one shoulder, and
faces dyed in scarlet up to the eyes. The men in bags, roll-ups, muffs,
and solitaires.

We had, at first arrival, an inundation of visits pouring in upon us,
for all the English are acquainted, and herd much together, and it is no
easy matter to disengage oneself from them, so that one sees but little
of the French themselves. To be introduced to people of high quality it
is absolutely necessary to be master of the language. There is not a
house where they do not play, nor is any one at all acceptable unless he
does so, too, a professed gamester being the most advantageous character
a man can have at Paris. The abbes and men of learning are of easy
access enough, but few English that travel have knowledge enough to take
any great pleasure in that company.

We are exceedingly unsettled and irresolute; don't know our own minds
for two moments together, and try to bring ourselves to a state of
perfect apathy. In short, I think the greatest evil that could have
happened to us is our liberty, for we are not at all capable to
determine our own actions.

TO HIS MOTHER

_Lyons, October 13, 1739._ We have been to see a famous monastery,
called the Grand Chartreuse, and had no reason to think our time lost.
After having travelled seven days, very slow (for we did not change
horses, it being impossible for a chaise to go post in these roads), we
arrived at a little village among the mountains of Savoy, called
Echelles; from thence we proceeded on horses, who are used to the way,
to the mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top; the road
runs winding up it, commonly not six feet broad; on one hand is the
rock, with woods of pine-trees hanging overhead; on the other, a
monstrous precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom of which rolls
a torrent, that sometimes is tumbling among the fragments of stone that
have fallen from on high, and sometimes precipitating itself down vast
descents with a noise like thunder, which is made still greater by the
echo from the mountains on each side, concurs to form one of the most
solemn, the most romantic, and the most astonishing scenes I ever
beheld. Add to this the strange views made by the crags and cliffs on
the other hand, the cascades that in many places throw themselves from
the very summit down into the vale and the river below.