[36] “La loi d’aubaine,” by which foreigners were prevented from inheriting or purchasing lands in France.
[37] Boissy d’Anglass. This worthy man was president of the national assembly on one of those occasions, when the mob burst into the hall, and attempted to dictate to the members.
With heroic courage, he refused to put any question, while the rabble remained in the assembly; and persevered in his resolution, notwithstanding the poignards which were raised against him, and the dreadful example of one of his colleagues, who was murdered by his side.
[38] That dark and wet climate.
[39] Believe me, sir, our young men see all this with the most perfect indifference.
[40] Coffeehouses.—The number of coffeehouses (properly so called, as coffee and liqueurs are the only articles which they supply) is very great at Paris, and they are constantly crowded. Swarms of idle persons spend their lives at these places, playing chess, talking politics, reading the journals, or sitting still. I have often counted more than one hundred individuals in a coffeeroom of a moderate size; and there is no hour of the day when the same scene does not present itself. Paris, under every government, and at all periods, will bear the same appearance as to amusements. Montesquieu, in his Persian Letters, gives the following description of the coffeehouses of his time, which applies exactly to those of the day:
“Le café est très en usage à Paris, il y a un grand nombre de maisons publiques, où on le distribue. Dans quelques unes de ces maisons on dit des nouvelles, dans d’autres on joue aux échecs. Il y en a une où l’on apprête le café, de telle manière qu’il donne de l’esprit à ceux qui en prennent; au moins, de tous ceux qui en sortent, il n’y a personne que ne croie qu’il en a quatre fois plus que lorsqu’il est entré.”
“Coffee is much in use in Paris. There are a great many public houses where it is distributed. In some of these houses the news of the day is reported, and in others chess is played. There is one, in which coffee is prepared, in such an extraordinary manner, that it improves the intellects of those who take it: at least, of those who come from this house, there is not one who does not think himself four times as wise as when he went in.”
[41] The establishment for the employment of the blind.
[42] In spite of myself.