CHAPTER XVIII
The _French_ are certainly misunderstood: ----but whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by us----or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not understanding their language always so critically as to know “what they would be at” ----I shall not decide; but ’tis evident to me, when they affirm, “_That they who have seen _Paris_, have seen everything_,” they must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light.
As for candle-light --I give it up ----I have said before, there was no depending upon it--and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and shades are too sharp--or the tints confounded--or that there is neither beauty or keeping, &c. . . . for that’s not truth--but it is an uncertain light in this respect, That in all the five hundred grand Hôtels, which they number up to you in _Paris_--and the five hundred good things, at a modest computation (for ’tis only allowing one good thing to a Hôtel), which by candle-light are best to be _seen_, _felt_, _heard_, and _understood_ (which, by the bye, is a quotation from _Lilly_)----the devil a one of us out of fifty, can get our heads fairly thrust in amongst them.
This is no part of the _French_ computation: ’tis simply this,
That by the last survey taken in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixteen, since which time there have been considerable argumentations, _Paris_ doth contain nine hundred streets; (viz.)
In the quarter called the _City_--there are fifty-three streets. In St. _James_ of the Shambles, fifty-five streets. In St. _Oportune_, thirty-four streets. In the quarter of the _Louvre_, twenty-five streets. In the _Palace Royal_, or St. _Honorius_, forty-nine streets. In _Mont. Martyr_, forty-one streets. In St. _Eustace_, twenty-nine streets. In the _Halles_, twenty-seven streets. In St. _Dennis_, fifty-five streets. In St. _Martin_, fifty-four streets. In St. _Paul_, or the _Mortellerie_, twenty-seven streets. The _Greve_, thirty-eight streets. In St. _Avoy_, or the _Verrerie_, nineteen streets. In the _Marais_, or the _Temple_, fifty-two streets. In St. _Antony’s_, sixty-eight streets. In the _Place Maubert_, eighty-one streets. In St. _Bennet_, sixty streets. In St. _Andrews de Arcs_, fifty-one streets. In the quarter of the _Luxembourg_, sixty-two streets.
And in that of St. Germain, fifty-five streets, into any of which you may walk; and that when you have seen them with all that belongs to them, fairly by day-light--their gates, their bridges, their squares, their statues - - - and have crusaded it moreover, through all their parish-churches, by no means omitting St. _Roche_ and _Sulpice_ - - - and to crown all, have taken a walk to the four palaces, which you may see, either with or without the statues and pictures, just as you chuse--
----Then you will have seen----
----but, ’tis what no one needeth to tell you, for you will read of it yourself upon the portico of the _Louvre_, in these words,
[7.3]EARTH NO SUCH FOLKS! --NO FOLKS E’ER SUCH A TOWN AS PARIS IS! --SING, DERRY, DERRY, DOWN.
The _French_ have a _gay_ way of treating everything that is Great; and that is all can be said upon it.
[Footnote 7.3: Non orbis gentem, non urbem gens habet ullam --------ulla parem.]
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