After saying thus much of a virtuous young man (_though a Frenchman_)
there will be no harm in telling you his name is _Lalieu_, a Captain in
the regiment _du Maine_.--Before I took my last leave of him, talking
together of the horrors of war, I asked him what he would do if he were
to see me _vis-a-vis_ in an hostile manner? He embraced me, and said,
"turn the but end of my fusee towards you, my friend." I thank God that
neither his _but-end_, nor my _muzzle_ can ever meet in that manner, and
I shall be happy to meet him in any other.

_P.S._ I omitted to say, that the _Maconoise_ female peasants wear
black hats, in the form of the English straw or chip hats; and when they
are tied on, under the chin, it gives them with the addition of their
round-eared laced cap, a decent, modest appearance which puts out of
countenance all the borrowed plumage, dead hair, black wool, lead,
grease, and yellow powder, which is now in motion between _Edinburgh_
and _Paris_.

It is a pity that pretty women, at least, do not know, that the
simplicity of a Quaker's head-dress, is superior to all that art can
contrive: and those who remember the elegant _Miss Fide_, a woman of
that persuasion, will subscribe to the truth of my assertion. And it is
still a greater pity, that plain women do not know, that the more they
adorn and _artify_ their heads, the more conspicuous they make their
natural defects.




LETTER XLVIII.