"Pour moi, Monsieur, je vous avouerai franchement que je préfère l'inoculation. Que diable! qu'avons-nous à faire avec les vaches ?"

"These," continued I, without noticing his philosophical question, "are such of the benefits bestowed upon mankind of late years as more immediately occur to me. I might mention our literature, which, by its unexampled fertility and excellence, supplies sources of gratification to all Europe, and to France in even a greater proportion than her native founts; but your country has doubtless many claims of the kind I have been enumerating, and as they have really escaped my notice, I shall feel sincerely obliged by your enabling me to recall them."

"Parbleu! Monsieur," replied my confabulist, buttoning up his coat with an air of ruffled majesty, "Ce n'est pas la peine, car vous conviendrez," (here I expected a bouncer)-" you will admit that in the greatest of all arts, that of war, we have conquered all Europe."-" Even if this were quite accurate," said I, "so far from its affording any proof of the benefits you have conferred, I should rather adduce it as a striking evidence of the contrary; but, unless we have been grievously deceived, you were somewhat discomfited in Russia,"

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"Ah! oui-c'est clair: mais c'étoit le froid, le climat; on ne fait pas la guerre aux élémens.' "And if any faith is to be given to public documents," I pursued, "you do not reckon among your victories many triumphs over the British arms. By sea you do not, probably, claim any; and I believe

the result was not very dissimilar upon terra firma, from St. Jean d'Acre to Maida, and Egypt, and all through the peninsular war down to Waterloo."

"Eh, Dieu! que voulez-vous? perhaps we are not invincible; but whenever we have been beaten, it has been by superior numbers or treachery.""It would be but fair to grant the same excuse to the adversaries of France," said I; "in which case her triumphs would reduce themselves to numerical superiority, or more extensive seduction.”

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Allez, Monsieur, je vous convaincrai en deux mots que la France mais voyez-vous, il va tomber de l'eau-excusez-j'ai l'honneur de vous saluer." So saying, he raised his venerable hat perpendicularly from his head, replaced it, made me a bow, and shuffled away at a dog-trot. The rain in fact beginning to fall, I removed to the corner of the Passage Feydeau, beside the marchand de coco aforementioned, at whose back was suspended a tin cylinder, decorated so as to resemble a little tower, from the three divisions of which respective tubes, brought round to his front, and furnished with syphons, enabled him to draw off into a polished cup, beer, lemonade, or liquorice-water, according to the taste, or rather the want of it, in his customers. This figure, who was in conversation with a shoeblack in a cocked hat and monstrous plaited pigtail, on the subject of the new bronze figure lately set up in the Place des Victoires, occasionally broke off to bawl out, "Qu'est-ce qui désire à boire-à boireà boire ?" and then earnestly resumed his discussion upon the work of art, which was shortly interrupted

by the approach of a small party, apparently not long imported from the banks of the Thames. It consisted of three persons; a lady who, besides the evidence of a fair and flushed face, presented a legitimate specimen of what the French term "la tournure Hollandaise des Anglaises;" her husband, dressed in a frock-coat, and those two rare articles in Paris-a pair of clean yellow gloves, and a smooth wellbrushed hat, seemingly very unhappy lest he should lose a spaniel that was following them; and a little girl of twelve or thirteen, who was devouring, with laudable diligence, a huge brioche which she had just bought. The second of these personages, addressing himself to the shoeblack and coco-merchant, exclaimed, "I say-quel est le cheming à Vivienne Street ?" In answer to which they severally interjected "Comment ?" and "Plait-il, Monsieur ?" looking up to him with a vacant astonishment, when I came forward and informed him that he was then at the beginning of the Rue Vivienne. A loud whistle, and the cry of "Carlo! Carlo!" were my thanks: the party, after proceeding a little way down the street, turned into a milliner's shop, and, as the rain began to increase to a smart shower, I followed them in, well knowing the courtesy of the Parisian shopkeepers upon these occasions.

Taking a chair by the door, I overheard my countryfolks at the other end proceeding to purchase a bonnet; in which treaty the young lady, on the strength of having learnt French for several years at a Chelsea boarding-school, was put forward as princi

pal negotiator. Of the poor girl's accent I can only say, that it was worthy the French, which she began as follows: Nous besoinons, s'il vous plait, un bonnet." This word unfortunately signifies a cap, several of which the marchande des modes proceeded to place before them, ejaculating at the same time— "Comme elle parle bien François! c'est étonnant! Mais, voyez donc, Zoe, Celestine, Hippolyte, voyez comme elle a bonne mine!" and "Comme elle est gentille!" was echoed by the smiling demoiselles aforesaid. By pointing to some bonnets in the window, the young lady, whose name I found was Harriet, explained the object of their visit, observing at the same time that it was excessively stupid of the woman, for of course "bonnet" must mean bonnet; and declaring that, in her opinion, the Parisians in general spoke very bad French, not at all like Mrs. Harrison at Chelsea. Carlo, meanwhile, was whisking about among the young ladies, who, in various tones and attitudes of mincing terror exclaimed, "Est-il sage?" "They want to know if he is wise, Papa," said the daughter.

"Wise! no; what the deuce, do they take him for Munito ?" Miss Harriet gave them a negative reply, when their consternation expressed itself by simultaneous exclamations of "Eh Dieu! il n'est pas sage! -va-t-en!-ôtes-toi de là!-O Ciel!" and " Méchante bête!" until a whistle from his master brought him crouching to his feet, and relieved them from their apprehensions. The young interpreter now returned a bonnet which had been pressed upon their acceptance, with the observation-" Maman dit que ceci

n'est pas un bon un," and would have added that she wanted one lined with pink, but declared her ignorance of the French for "lined" and "pink;" whereat her father expressed some indignation, observing that it was a dead take-in of Mrs. Harrison to make him pay so much for French, and he always paid her bills regularly, when the child knew no more of it than the Pope of Rome. Signs-that cheap and convenient language which one may learn without Mrs. Herrison -supplied the defect, and the marchande produced a bonnet "doublé en couleur de rose," exclaiming, "Ah! celui-ci vous siéra bien," and pretending to be in raptures as she tried it on, she ejaculated, "Voyez, donc, Anastasie, Cassandre, Flavie, Hortense, comme ça va bien à Madame !" when the demoiselles respectively interjected, "C'est gentil-c'est joli-c'est charmant-c'est distingué !" This was decisive; the bonnet was selected, the husband put his purse upon the counter, and at the same moment Carlo, rising on his hind legs, as if to overlook the settlement, deposited his front paws on two pieces of white satin, leaving upon each a large sample of the black liquid mud collected in the kennels of the Rue Vivienne.

Fresh exclamations were occasioned by this accident, and Miss Harriet was made to understand, with some difficulty, that it was necessary to take a yard of each piece. "Combien l'aune ?" inquired the father, who had accomplished that extent of French. "Monsieur, cette pièce se vend à sept francs, et celle-ci à neuf;” which words she pronounced, as customary, se' and