English young ladies."

I felt the rebuke, as I knew to what circumstances they alluded, and
observed that the English society inhabiting Boulogne were by no means
what could, be termed the _élite_ of the nation, although there were
many families of the highest respectability.

The ladies, perceiving by my manner that I was somewhat nettled,
endeavoured to soften what they had said, by observing that certainly it
would not be just to estimate the English people by the samples which
came to reside at Boulogne, as they had generally understood that they
were persons of indifferent reputation, who fled from their own country
because they could no longer live there in credit, but that amongst the
number there undoubtedly were some very quiet people.

A stranger would not appreciate the degree of praise which is contained
in the word quiet when used by the French, who appear to consider it as
comprising all the cardinal virtues; when seeking a house or apartments,
if you say any thing favourable or unfavourable of them, they never fail
to remind you that they are so quiet. The same eulogy they will
pronounce on their daughters with peculiar pride and energy, when they
wish to extol them to the skies, and in good truth their _demoiselles_
are quiet enough in all conscience, for it requires often a
considerable degree of ingenuity to extract from them more than
monosyllables. We have been accustomed to consider the French as a
restless, capricious, volatile people, and so I suppose they might have
been formerly, but now they are undoubtedly the reverse, being a quiet
routine plodding sort of people, particularly as regards the
provincials; and even amongst the Parisians there are thousands that
reside in one quarter of the city, which they seldom quit, never