They exhibit also a great variety of lamps, oil being usually burnt in France, and many different kinds of locks, one of which, a door-lock, had an ingenious piece of mechanism attached to it, for the purpose of seizing any one by the hand who should attempt to pick it. But, in general, the show of locks, as well as every article of hardware and cutlery, was much inferior to the hard and sharp ware of English make.
The old church of the priory is filled with agricultural implements and fire-engines. The former, as far as I am a judge, are much ruder than ours; but different kinds of land must certainly require different kinds of ploughs and harrows, &c. The fire-engines are numerous, among which I observed one of Bramah's. I saw too a very clever kind of fire-escape, consisting of a series of ladders, of different widths, which are placed upright on a small truck running on four low wheels, and which, when brought to the required situation, are worked up one above another to any height, by the means of a windlass. Among a variety of very beautiful time-pieces, one is remarkable for the complicated structure of its pendulum. This is made upon the old English principle, of two self-correcting metals, which you know thus keep it of the same length in all temperatures and climates; but the different pieces of metal are joined together in a curious manner, the use of which I do not understand. The ball of this pendulum is a little chronometer, keeping, they say, exact time with the large one, which _itself_ preserves in motion. To another time-piece, made by a German, there is attached on the top a very pretty little orrery, inclosed in a glass sphere, on which are engraved, with fluoric acid, the different, constellations, &c. Here is also the car in which was performed the first aërial voyage ever undertaken; but it is a clumsy, heavy thing, of the size and shape of a large slipper-bath.
On Monday, the 8th of January, I left Paris with regret, but with the hope of again visiting it, and joined my regiment at Creil, a poor dirty town, near Chantilly, where I was obliged to content myself with a nasty unfloored apartment in a miserable auberge. During the first fortnight I scarcely stirred from the house, the surrounding country being all under water.
