inferior to, and much wholesomer than, Champaigne, and she charged me
for the whole, milk, bread, fire, _conversation_, and wine, thirty six
_sols_, about seventeen pence English! Though this gentlewoman, for so I
must call her, and so I believe she is, lived in such a small hut, she
seemed to be in good circumstances, and had _liqueurs_, tea, and a great
variety of _bons choses_ to sell. This was the only public house, (if it
maybe called by that name,) during my whole journey _out_ and _in_,
where I found perfect civility; not that the publicans in general have
not civility _in their possession_, but they will not, either from
_pride_ or _design_, _produce it_, particularly to strangers. My
_wooden-house landlady_ indeed, was a prodigy; and it must be confessed,
that no woman of the lower order in England, nor even of the middling
class, have any share of that ease and urbanity which is so common among
the lower order of the _people_ of this kingdom: but the woman I now
speak of, had not, you will perceive, the least design even upon my
purse; I made no previous agreement with her for my good fare, and she
scorned to take any advantage of my confidence; and I shewed my sense of
it, by giving her little maid eight times more than she ever received
for such services before--an English shilling.

Let not this single, and singular woman, however, induce you to trust to
the confidence of a French _aubergiste_ especially a _female_; you may
as well trust to the conscience of an itinerant Jew. Frenchmen are so
aware of this, that have heard a traveller, on a _maigre_ day, make his
bargain for his _aumlet_ and the number of eggs to be put in it, with an
exactness scarce to be imagined; and yet the upshot was only two pence
English.

The easy manner in which a French officer, or gentleman, can traverse
this mighty kingdom, either for pleasure or business, is extremely