dom see any disgusting instances of intoxication, or
any material difference of manner, between those who are avowedly
unprincipled and abandoned, and the most respectable part of the
community. In the caffes, which correspond not only to the
coffee-houses, but to the taverns of London, you will see modest women,
at all hours of the day, often alone, sitting in the midst of the men.
In the Palais Royal, at no hour of the night do you witness scenes of
gross indecency or riot.

To an Englishman, it often serves as an excuse for vicious indulgences,
that he is led off his feet by temptation. To a Frenchman, this excuse
is the only crime; he stands in no need of an apology for vice; but it
is necessary "qu'il se menage:" he is taught "qu'un peche cache est la
moitie pardonne;" he must on no account allow, that any temptation can
make him lose his recollection or presence of mind.

We ought perhaps to admit likewise, that some of the vices common among
the French are not merely less foul and disgusting in appearance, but
less odious in their own nature, than those of our countrymen. We do not
say this in palliation of their conduct. It is rather to be considered
as a benevolent provision of nature, that in proportion as vice is more
generally diffused, its influence on individual character is less fatal.
This remark applies particularly to the case of women. A woman in
England, who loses one virtue, knows that she outrages the opinion of
mankind; she disobeys the precepts of her religion, and estranges
herself from the examples which she has been taught to revere; she
becomes an outcast of society; and if she has not already lost, must
soon lose all the best qualities of the female character. But a French
woman, in giving way to unlawful love, knows that she does no more than
her mother did before her; if she is of the lower ranks, she is not
necessarily debarred from honest occupation; if of the higher, she loses
little or nothing in the estimation of society; if she has been taught
to revere any religion, it is the Catholic, and she may look to
absolution. Her conduct, therefore, neither implies her having lost, nor
necessarily occasions her losing, any virtue but one; and during the
course of the revolution, we have understood there have been many
examples, proving, in the most trying circumstances, that not even the
worst corruptions of Paris had destroyed some of the finest virtues
which can adorn the sex. "Elles ont