So the archbishop gave it up as a bad job.
You say true: it is an extraordinary country, "La belle France;" but yet, in other days, I used to find much in it that gave me pleasure; and amidst the many faults that crowd upon the eye of a stranger on his first visit to any foreign country, I could descry many good qualities. At present my eye is jaundiced, and I dare not judge. I should be sorry to form an opinion of France from Bordeaux, but certainly there is vice enough here to supply a moderate kingdom.
I do not remember whether I have given you any account of Bordeaux before; if so, pardon the repetition. Not satisfied with the ordinary means of gambling, the good people have here invented one for themselves expressly. The price of brandy, you must know, is excessively subject to variation, and upon this they speculate, making bargains for time, as our stock-jobbers do, by which means fortunes are lost and won with extraordinary facility. The life of one of these men is brandy: he rises thinking of brandy--he writes about brandy all the morning--at dinner he talks about it--at the coffee-house he asks the news of brandy--at the theatre he makes a bargain between the acts, and then going to bed he dreams of a hogshead.
The upper classes of the Bordelois have the reputation of being not a little depraved. The next rank is a degree less corrupt; and lower down comes a race rather famous. You have heard of course of the Grisettes of Bourdeaux, and certainly they do appear the prettiest little beings that ever were turned out of a band-box, as they go tripping along the streets with their neat shoes and well-turned ankle and leg, which they do not at all scruple to show somewhat more than necessary. When in their working-dress, they wear a handkerchief shrewdly twisted round their head, a gown of common printed muslin, but cut in the most elegant form, and a little black silk apron, with a pocket on each side before, into which they put their hands to keep them warm in the winter.
Their dress at balls, and on fête days, is of the richest materials that can be found--expensive silks of the brightest colours, and a quantity of lace, which is principally displayed in the cap, that is then substituted for the handkerchief on the head. I am sorry to say that these young ladies are not generally famous for their morals. It is not, indeed, to be expected that they should be so. The same disgrace is not attached to the loss of virtue in this class as it is in England. If I may use the expression, they do not lose cast as they would with us, and are far from being disgraced amongst their fellows, by any degree of immorality except infidelity. All this does not prevent them from marrying when they arrive at a certain period of life, and making often better wives than those who, in the higher ranks, never went astray till they were married.
It is extraordinary, amidst this general dissolution of morals, how our fair countrywomen at Bordeaux keep themselves from all contamination. As you may suppose, there are a multitude of English families here, and I have never yet heard, a whisper against the female part of them. I know several persons here; some very agreeable, some who might be very agreeable if they would; but in general the society is confined to cold formal dinner-parties, which are little calculated to promote sociality. I do not at all thank a man for giving me a dinner. I can always get that for myself; but if he invites me to meet pleasant people, and adds one happy hour to the little stock of enjoyment that man can find in life, he lays me under an absolute obligation.
There are many Protestants in Bordeaux, and consequently a Protestant chapel, which I have attended frequently. Did you ever remark how intolerant a persecuted sect becomes? The horrible severities exercised for long upon the French Protestants have excited in them the most violent hatred to the Church of Rome; and even from the pulpit they do not spare their mother church. There is, however, here one of the best preachers I have ever heard, a Monsieur Vermeille. His sermons are by no means equally good; but I have heard him on many occasions burst into the most powerful strain of eloquence you can conceive. But my own eloquence is becoming rather tedious, and therefore I shall merely bid you farewell.
Your's ever,
J.P.Y.