--As I had
formerly been of some service to _Faucaut_ who keeps the _Hotel
d'York_, when he lived in _Rue de Mauvais Garcon_ I went to this
_famous Hotel_, which would have been more in character, if he had given
it the name of his former street, and called it, _L'Hotel de Mauvais
Garcon_ for it is an hospital of bugs and vermin: the fellow has got the
second-hand beds of _Madame Pompadour_, upon his first floor, which he
_modestly_ asks thirty _louis d'ors_ a month for! All the rest of the
apartments are pigeon-holes, filled with fleas, bugs, and dirt; and
should a fire happen, there is no way of escaping. Nothing should be
more particularly attended to in _Paris_ than the security from fire,
where so many, and such a variety of strangers, and their servants, are
shut up at night, within one _Porte Cochere_.
LETTER LII.
PARIS.
I found no greater alteration in _Paris_, after ten years' absence from
it, than the prodigious difference of expence; most articles, I think,
are one-third dearer, and many double; a horse is not half so well fed
or lodged at _Paris_ as at _London_; but the expence is nearly a guinea
a week, and a stranger may drive half round the city before he can lodge
himself and his horses under the same roof.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122