There is as much difference between the bankers of _London_ and bankers in _Paris_, as between a rotten apple and a sound one. You can hardly get a word from a London banker, but you are sure of getting your money; in _Paris_, you will get _words_ enough, and civil ones too. Remember, however, I am speaking only of the treatment I have experienced. There may be, and are, no doubt, English bankers at _Paris_ of great worth, and respectable characters.
It is not reckoned very decent to frequent coffee-houses at _Paris_; but the politeness of _Monsieur_ and _Madame Felix, au caffe de Conti_, opposite the _Pont neuf_, and the English news-papers, render their house a pleasant circumstance to me; and it is by much the best, and best situated, of any in _Paris, au vois le monde_.
I am astonished, that where such an infinite number of people live in so small a compass, (for _Paris_ is by no means so large as _London_) that they should suffer the dead to be buried in the manner they do, or within the city. There are several burial pits in _Paris_, of a prodigious size and depth, in which the dead bodies are laid, side by side, without any earth being put over them till the ground tier is full; then, and not till then, a small layer of earth covers them, and another layer of dead comes on, till by layer upon layer, and dead upon dead, the hole is filled with a mass of human corruption, enough to breed a plague; these places are enclosed, it is true, within high walls; but nevertheless, the air cannot be _improved_ by it; and the idea of such an assemblage of putrifying bodies, in one grave, so thinly covered, is very disagreeable. The burials in churches too, often prove fatal to the priests and people who attend; but every body, and every thing in _Paris_, is so much alive, that not a soul thinks about the dead.
I wish I had been born a Frenchman.--Frenchmen live as if they were never to die. Englishmen die all _their lives_; and yet as _Lewis_ the XIVth said, "I don't think it is so difficult a matter to die, as men generally imagine, when they try in earnest."
I must tell you before I leave _Paris_, that I stept over to _Marli_, to see the Queen; I had seen the King nine years ago; but he was not then a King over eight millions of people, and the finest country under the sun; yet he does not seem to lay so much stress upon his mighty power as might be expected from so young a prince, but appears grave and thoughtful. I am told he attends much to business, and endeavours to make his subjects happy. His resolution to be inoculated, immediately after succeeding to such a kingdom, is a proof of his having a great share of fortitude. In England such a determination would have been looked upon with indifference; but in France, where the bulk of the people do not believe that it secures the patient from a second attack; where the clergy in general consider it unfavourable, even in a religious light; and where the physical people, for want of practice, do not understand the management of the distemper, so as it is known in England; I may venture to say, without being charged with flattery, that it was an heroic resolution: add to this, the King knowing, that if his subjects followed his example, it must be chiefly done by their own surgeons and physicians, he put himself under their management alone, though I think _Sutton_ was then at _Paris_.