For instance--you arrive at Paris: how striking the difference between the reception you receive at your hotel, and that you would find in London! In London, arrive in your carriage! (_that_ I grant is necessary)--the landlord meets you at the door, surrounded by his anxious attendants; he bows profoundly when you alight--calls loudly for every thing you want, and seems shocked at the idea of your waiting an instant for the merest trifle you can possibly _imagine_ that you desire. Now try your Paris hotel--you enter the courtyard--the proprietor, if he happen to be there, receives you with careless indifference, and either accompanies you saunteringly himself, or orders some one to accompany you to the apartments which, on first seeing you, he determined you should have. It is useless to expect another. If you find any fault with this apartment, if you express any wish that it had this little thing, that it had not that, do not for one moment imagine that your host is likely to say, with an eager air, that he "will see what can be done"--that he "would do a great deal to please so respectable a gentleman." In short, do not suppose him for one moment likely to pour forth any of those little civilities with which the lips of your English innkeeper would overflow. On the contrary, be prepared for his lifting up his eyes, and shrugging up his shoulders, (the shrug is not the courtier-like shrug of antique days,) and telling you that the apartment is as you see it, that it is for Monsieur to make up his mind whether he take it or not. The whole is the affair of the guest, and remains a matter of perfect indifference to the host. Your landlady, it is true, is not quite so haughty on these occasions. But you are indebted for her smile rather to the coquetry of the beauty, than to the civility of the hostess. She will tell you, adjusting her head-dress in the mirror standing upon the chimney-piece in the little "salon" she recommends--"que Monsieur s'y trouvera fort bien, qu'un milord Anglais, qu'un prince Russe, ou qu'un colonel du ----ième de dragons, a occupé cette même chambre"--and that there is just by an excellent restaurateur and a "cabinet de lecture"--and then--her head-dress being quite in order--the lady expanding her arms with a gentle smile, says, "Mais après tout, c'est à Monsieur à se décider." It is this which makes your French gentleman so loud in praise of English politeness. One was expatiating to me the other day on the admirable manners of the English.