of our wives' conversation among themselves,
when they put their heads confidentially
together on the state sofa by the fireplace. It
will be a blessing, indeed, if, when we come up
stairs half tipsy ourselves, we do not find the
partners of our fortunes wholly so to receive
us. They must have strong heads, if M.
Larcher speaks the truth. Furthermore, I am
told that, towards the age of forty, every "comme
il faut" woman gets tipsy before she goes to bed,
under pretence of stomach-ache and disordered
digestion; and that there is not a woman of the
lower classes who may not frequently be picked
up out of the gutter. M. Larcher has many
times assisted at such pickings up, and his
services were thankfully accepted; for it always
takes three men to manage a drunken Englishwoman.

But if M. Larcher is pitiless, what is MADAME
FLORA TRISTAN? Let me give the whole name,
with all possible typographical honour. What
have I and my compatriots ever done to
Madame Flora Tristan, that she should be so fierce
and wrathful? and where, for goodness' sake, has
Madame Flora been, to have ever stumbled upon
the sights which she so graphically describes?
I flatter myself that I know town pretty well;
also, I am afraid, I know something of the
"saloons" and "finishes" of which this pure-
minded French person speaks; but I have never
even heard of the things which she says she has
seen with her own undoubted eyes, and certainly
I have never seen anything in the remotest degree
resembling them. I have never seen beautiful
women in white satin and pearl diadems, forced
to drink a horrible mixture of pepper, salt,
vinegar, and mustard, which naturally flings
them into frightful convulsions, at which all the
guests laugh and cheer; nor have I even seen
these same beautiful women lying in a helpless
mass of drunkenness on the floor, then
brutally kicked by waiters out of their way,
while each guest pours brandy, gin, and rum
over their magnificent arms, and some tear their
white satin dresses, and others spurn them with
their feet.

M. Larcher is a man of extreme sensibility as
well as of uneasy morality, and sees deeper into
the millstone of hidden vice than most people
would. Here follows an instance of his
hedgehog-like propriety. He is invited to dine at
the house of one of our richest men; indeed,
one of the richest men on the globe. The
house is marvellous, fairylike; everything most
beautiful is there in profusion, and everything
is perfect, from the largest to the smallest.
The English millionnaire throws a little
ostentation into his entertainment, which is only for
three persons; his object being to dazzle the
French book-writer and his friend; but the
ostentation is kindly meant, and the book-writer
is not too critical, until the serpent peeps round
the corner. Breakfast is served, when, to wait
at table, appear three very pretty servant-maids:
M. Larcher calls them daughters of Eve, and
says that they are of a ravishing beauty. Most
Englishmen, we think, would have accepted this
fact of female service in the house of a millionnaire,
as a peculiar characteristic, perhaps as an
eccentricity; M. Larcher sees deeper.
Immediately the viands choke him, the flowers fade,
the gorgeous appointments are full of poison,
and snakes' heads abound.

We are a bad, vile, mischancy set, every way;
and our whole moral life may be photographed by
one word—INTEREST. To our own interest we
refer every moral and social question, while
using all our science and cleverness to
dissimulate and conceal this fact; we are also
"the most greedy, the most selfish, the most
egotistical people in Europe;" and the most
inconsequent. We men, getting intoxicated,
leave our wives and children to starve; some
of us cast a hundred thousand francs at the
feet of a public singer, but fly into a rage if
our servants eat a few potatoes beyond their
prescribed rations; others of us ostentatiously
give two hundred and fifty thousand francs to a
public subscription for the poor, but pitilessly
deny a crust of bread to a famishing wretch.
We are all alike; father, mother, wives, children;
we all live only for ourselves, see only ourselves,
seek only our own satisfaction. What wonder,
then, that we are too vile for an honest
sympathetic Frenchman, with this unbridled selfishness
as the very root of our being?

It is notorious that I dance in an ungainly
fashion. We English do not take our stand
upon the minor graces; but is it true that I
dance so ill that M. Larcher is forced to go into
a retired corner and there personate Laughter,
holding both his sides, for fear of splitting them,
at my grotesqueness? I always thought that
there was more to be seen at Mabille, than all the
casinos of London could show. But M. Larcher
knows best; he knows all infinitely better than
I know myself; he knows all about me, from
the richest man on the globe who asks me to
breakfast, and causes me to be served by three
ravishing daughters of Eve, to the drunken
butler, who is to be found glorious at the "shop-
house" (maison boutique, translates M. Larcher,
for the benefit of his Parisian readers), or who,
haply, may be heard of selling his wife at
"Smith-field Marquet," or boating in a coal-
barge on the river Tyne-Tyne—wherever that
may be—I should have supposed, in China, but
for M. Larcher's assurance.

In matters of religion, I find that I am not
only abominably bigoted, but also under the
command of the Archbishop Primalt to an extent
I never dreamed of. So far as I am concerned,
I always understood that the Archbishop Primalt
was a highly venerable functionary, who allows
me to marry, for a consideration; and to take
possession of my inheritance, also for a
consideration; but beyond this, that venerated
ecclesiastic has had no perceptible influence
over my life that I am aware of. Yet I find
that he has not only absolute power over me, and
over every one in his archbishopric, but that he
even uses this power, and that we submit to it
without a murmur. Thus, not long ago, he took
umbrage at the fact that many of the Protestant