48 Shop Signs. La nature donne barbe et cheveux; or, A toutes les figures dediant mes rasoirs Also a frequent inscription with a barber is- A breeches maker writes up, M. Culottier de Madame la Duchesse de Devonshire. A Perruquier exhibits a sign very well painted of an old fop trying on a new wig, entitled, Au ci-devant jeune homme. A butcher displays a bouquet of faded flowers, with the inscription Au tendre souvenir. An eating-house exhibits a punning sign in an ox dressed up with bonnet, lace, veil, shawl, &c. which naturally implies-Bauf à la mode. A pastry-cook has a very pretty little girl climbing up to reach some cakes in a cupboard, and his sign he calls A la petite gourmande. A stocking-maker has painted for him a lovely creature trying on a new stocking, at the same time exhibiting more charms than the occasion requires to the young fellow who is on his knees at her feet, with the very significant motto A la belle occasion. Paris abounds with fountains, many of them of great architectural beauty. One includes a pillar rising from a capacious basin, inscribed with records of the memorable battles of France, and surmounted by a figure of Fame. Another on the Boulevards, of granite and bronze, presents a noble circular basin, and eight bronze lions couched, from whose mouths the streams perpetually flow. I transcribe two of the many mottoes. Tot loca sacra inter pura est quæ labitur unda : Pure is the stream that flows throughout this sacred part; Hence, drink it not with unclean lips, whoe'er thou art. The second is peculiarly appropriate and pleasing. Quæ dat aquas saxo latet hospita nympha sub imo : Beneath, unseen's the nymph who gives this bounteous flow; Bonaparte projected a singular erection for this purpose, which is now slowly proceeding, and will occupy four more years. I went yesterday to see it: the model of an elephant and tower on his back, together of the height of sixty-five feet, and proportionately big, from whose trunk, curved inwardly, and from the two nostrils, the water is to spring in two different directions. By a staircase in one of the legs, a room may be reached in the tower, intended as an observatory. There is a drawing, exhibiting this elephant 50 French Manners. covered with a very tasteful Indian drapery of bronze and gold; his tusks were to be silver, and the accompanying lions, who were to eject water from one cistern to another, bronze. The design is grand and stupendous; and it was further intended as a distant object of view from the Palace of the Tuileries by a noble street of a mile and a half in length. There is also another consideration attached to this monument, which, as it strikes me, so forcibly indicates the policy and discrimination of Bonaparte prevailing in most of his acts, as not to need any comment, or explanation :-it is erected on the site of the ancient Bastille. With respect to French manners or character, so far as my own observations extend, I do not think that to the English they are so complaisant, or even so commonly civil as they used to be. When after the battle of Waterloo, and the first establishment of peace, the wealthy English came crowding to Paris, profuse of their money and regardless of expence, they were from political motives objects of respect, and from pecuniary considerations, &c. certain of meeting with distinction. But an English man or lady is now no longer a novelty: there are as many English in France for economy as dissipation from experience, they no longer suffer themselves to be surcharged and cheated; and with shame must it be added, that some French have suffered from the premeditated roguery of the English. National antipathies, stifled for a time, seem inclined to burst out on the least occasion; I sometimes hear the English called by the most opprobrious names on the slightest quarrel about price, or other trifle, or because they will not pay more than the French themselves. The English feel their position: they recollect that they conquered France; they know that their mediation chiefly saved Paris from destruction and fire; and that superiority which they feel they will occasionally show. With the fair sex, no man can quarrel, and I do think that the French women are vraiment seduisantes. In complexion, they are evidently inferior to their English rivals; neither for general beauty of face, and delicacy of expression, can they be commonly put in competition. To what then am I to attribute their irresistible modes of pleasing? To their very insinuating address, and very fascinating manners; to the extraordinary ease, and vivacity they display in their intercourse with the other sex, arising from the unbounded freedom of mutual association, and the pleasure with which they court it ;-to a pleasing and musical inflection of voice to a tournure and taille always displayed to the extremest advantage: to which add the attractions of unrivalled black hair, and sparkling black eyes. In France intrigue prevails, it is said, in many a circle: I believe it, though this however is to be understood but to a certain extent. It would seem that the French, reverencing the sacred ties of marriage, and admitting how happy some few congenial hearts may be, thus bound, seek not to decry, or to shake, such hallowed institutions, further strengthened by such important politic, and legislative, bonds; but sensible at the same time how often with them these "silken strings" are felt as galling, slavish, chains, and with what mutual goodwill each party would fain release the other: intrigue and gallantry are therefore pretty generally admissible, though never publicly avowed. Thus, according to their code, wedded love still is sacred; but where Hymen's torch is extinguished by the vapours of mutual discontent, the flame for another object that may arise need not be smothered, but may burn, provided it glare not in open unshaded publicity. A wife is still a wife in all those duties and exterior bienséance, which her husband and society demand; nor is the finger of scorn pointed at the innocent children because their mother's frailty may be supposed, or even known. Happy as the French are with this understood liberty from the smallest to the greatest licence ; never, I think, will such a system prevail in England. There, marriage is still revered as the hope of youth, the happiness of manhood, the solace of age. Its comforts may be diminished, its joys may |