love show; but there is a meanness reigns through it all. At the house
where I stood to see this procession, the room was hung with crimson
damask and gold, and the windows were mended in ten or a dozen places
with paper. At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the
dishes is patched up with salads, butter, puff-paste, or some such
miscarriage of a dish. None, but Germans, wear fine clothes; but their
coaches are tawdry enough for the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would
laugh extremely at their signs: some live at the Y grec, some at Venus's
toilette, and some at the sucking cat. You would not easily guess their
notions of honour: I'll tell you one: it is very dishonourable for any
gentleman not to be in the army, or in the king's service as they call
it, and it is no dishonour to keep public gaming-houses: there are at
least a hundred and fifty people of the first quality in Paris who live
by it. You may go into their houses at all hours of the night, and find
hazard, pharaoh, &c. The men who keep the hazard-table at the Duke de
Gesvres' pay him twelve guineas each night for the privilege. Even the
princesses of the blood are dirty enough to have shares in the banks
kept at their houses. We have seen two or three of them; but they are
not young, nor remarkable but for wearing their red of a deeper dye than
other women, though all use it extravagantly.

The weather is still so bad, that we have not made any excursions to see
Versailles and the environs, not even walked in the Tuileries; but we
have seen almost everything else that is worth seeing in Paris, though
that is very considerable. They beat us vastly in buildings, both in
number and magnificence. The tombs of Richelieu and Mazarin at the
Sorbonne and the College de Quatre Nations are wonderfully fine,
especially the former. We have seen very little of the people
themselves, who are not inclined to be propitious to strangers,
especially if they do not play and speak the language readily. There are