whose favour I have had an opportunity of seeing more, and being better
informed, than I could have been without so respectable an acquaintance.
At _Vienne_ I only knew his rank, here I became acquainted with his good
character, and fortune, which is very considerable in _Dauphine_, where
he has two or three fine seats. His Lady came to _Lyons_ to lye-in,
attended by the Marquis's sister, a _Chanoinesse_, a most agreeable
sensible woman, of a certain age; but the Countess is young and
beautiful.

You may imagine that, after what I said of _Lyons_, on my way _to_
Spain, I did not associate much with my own country-folks. On my return,
indeed, my principal amusement was to see as much as I could, in a town
where so much is to be seen; and in relating to you what I have seen, I
will begin with the _Hotel De Ville_; if it had not that name, I should
have called it a Palace, for there are few palaces so large or so noble;
on the first entrance of which, in the vestibule, you see, fixed in the
wall, a large plate of Bronze, bearing stronger marks of fire than of
age; on which were engraven, seventeen hundred years ago, two harangues
made by the Emperor _Claudius_ in the senate, in favour of the
_Lyonoise_, and which are not only legible at this day, but all the
letters are sharp and well executed; the plate indeed is broke quite
through the middle, but fortunately the fraction runs between the first
and second harangues, so as to have done but little injury among the
the letters. As I do not know whether you ever saw a copy of it, I
inclose it to you, and desire you will send it as an agreeable exercise,
to be well translated by my friend at Oxford.

On the other side of the vestibule is a noble stair-case, on which is
well painted the destruction of the city, by so dreadful a fire in the
time of the Romans, that _Seneca_, who gives an account of it in a