English comfort, clean rooms, breakfasts, and waiters; if you would
have plentiful dinners, and are not particular (as how should you
be?) concerning wine; if, in this foreign country, you WILL have
your English companions, your porter, your friend, and your brandy-
and-water--do not listen to any of these commissioner fellows, but
with your best English accent, shout out boldly, "MEURICE!" and
straightway a man will step forward to conduct you to the Rue de
Rivoli.

Here you will find apartments at any price: a very neat room, for
instance, for three francs daily; an English breakfast of eternal
boiled eggs, or grilled ham; a nondescript dinner, profuse but
cold; and a society which will rejoice your heart. Here are young
gentlemen from the universities; young merchants on a lark; large
families of nine daughters, with fat father and mother; officers of
dragoons, and lawyers' clerks. The last time we dined at
"Meurice's" we hobbed and nobbed with no less a person than Mr.
Moses, the celebrated bailiff of Chancery Lane; Lord Brougham was
on his right, and a clergyman's lady, with a train of white-haired
girls, sat on his left, wonderfully taken with the diamond rings of
the fascinating stranger!

It is, as you will perceive, an admirable way to see Paris,
especially if you spend your days reading the English papers at
Galignani's, as many of our foreign tourists do.

But all this is promiscuous, and not to the purpose. If,--to
continue on the subject of hotel choosing,--if you love quiet,
heavy bills, and the best table-d'hote in the city, go, O stranger!
to the "Hotel des Princes;" it is close to the Boulevard, and