castle, "a square edifice surrounded by a ditch, and terminated at its upper extremity by a sort of donjon," to receive certain prisoners from the Châtelet of Paris, who were supposed to be liberated, on the entry of a queen into the capital; and for whose board and lodging he was duly paid. On these occasions, he undertook for all such prisoners, as were excluded from the general act of grace; and his castle had sometimes as many as fifty of these melancholy exceptions within its walls. All things considered, I would much rather be the tanner, surrounded by his merry men, who now dwells in the castle, than the high and mighty Seigneur, surrounded by slaves and victims-himself both slave and victim in his turn.

257

THE COMMON PEOPLE.

My allusions to the common people of France,

in

my former work on that country, afforded matter of attack to the Drapeau Blanc, the Quotidienne, and even to the Journal des Debats (which is now in the same category of reprobation as myself.)* "Lady Morgan," says one of these journals,-it is now no matter which, -" has produced a work, Dictée par sa blan

* Mons. Berton, redacteur of the Moniteur Royaliste de Gand in 1815, was recently condemned to fifteen months' imprisonment, as editor of the Debats.

VOL. II.

S

chisseuse, et écrite par son valet de chambre."* To the people, however, of any country, we must talk, if we desire to know the country. I have done so in my own, and elsewhere, and je m'en trouve bien. I owe to this habit of living with my fellow-creatures, as my fellow-creatures, the best and most successful traits of my happiest authorship, my Mac Rorys, my O'Learys, and my Shanes, all more or less portraits from living originals: so, in spite of the aristocratic muses of the Quotidienne, and the Quarterly, I shall go on in my old way, talk to the people when I meet them, and write them down, when I find any thing illustrative or amusing to say of them.

One morning, I ordered an English muslin dress to be sent home by a certain hour on the

Dictated by her washerwoman, and written by her footman," an epigram too smart for the self-denial of a journalist; particularly as it was written by a Duc et Pair, then a constant contributor.

next day, for an occasion when an English muslin dress was "la robe obligée." My servant brought me word that it could not be got up in so short a time; and a very smart, well-dressed, but inferior member of the establishment, came to explain why it was so. I asked her what was her department, and she replied "une œuvreuse en gros, or savoneuse,' (a plain washer,) at forty-two sous per diem. The next grade above her in the hierarchy of the wash-tub, she informed me, is the empeseuse, or starcher, whose business is always superintended by the bourgeoise herself; that is, by the chief of the house. Then comes the raffineuse, or clear-starcher, and last, the repasseuse, or ironer, (the two last, by-the-bye, earning three francs per diem.) "But why cannot you do all this yourself?" I asked. "Comment, Madame! I, wash, starch, clear, and iron ?-impossible. Every one to her own department;" and then, with an easy curtsey, "J'ai l'honneur de vous saluer," she

and a

left me to the horrors of a silk dress, when a muslin one was the law of the season.

Presently afterwards came la bourgeoise, the head of the firm. She was a fine woman, and elegantly dressed in the extreme of the fashion (as different, par parenthèse, from my old acquaintance of the Hotel d'Orleans, as the Faubourg itself is from the quartier des Tuileries.) I attempted to utter a few words of remonstrance, on the possibility of any body being able to wash a gown in twenty-four hours; but, confounded by her air and manner, if not convinced by her declaration, "Que c'étoit une science," and that one must

have been brought up "dans les principes," to understand any thing about the matter, I begged her pardon for the trouble I had given her, and resigned myself to my fate and to a gros de Naples.

Through every department of social and domestic life in France, the influence of this spirit of routine is more or less perceptible-a