English manners—
"English manners, rigid and cold, and dominated by arid rationalism, are the work of Cromwell. His bigotry and hypocrisy, his exterior austerity, his narrow formalism, suit the Englishman; he keeps up Cromwell's character, and admires himself in his usages. But he has no pity for his model—he never forgives Cromwell for having made him what he is. His spite towards that man is the last cry of nature, and the vague regret of a liberty of imagination of which neither the joys or the aspirations have been known since his time." "They have no grace, no desinvoltura, no poesy in them, but are methodical, reasonable, indefatigable in work and in amassing lucre."
How the English love—
"They love nothing with the heart; when they do love, it is exclusively of the head."
English bankers—
"In France we have the love of display; but in London it is not so. There, some of the principal bankers go every morning to the butchers' shops to buy their own chops, and they carry them ostensibly to some tavern in Cheapside or Fleet Street, where they cook them themselves. Then they buy three pennyworth of rye-bread, and publicly eat this Spartan breakfast. The exhibition fills their clients with admiration. But in the evening these good men make up for this by taking in their own palaces suppers worthy of Lucullus."
Flunkeys—
"The English aristocracy are distinguished by the number, the canes, and the wigs of their lacqueys. Seeing constantly a footman, well powdered and bewigged, carry horizontally a large Voltaire cane behind certain sumptuous carriages, I asked for an explanation; it was soon given—wig, powder, and cane are aristocratic privileges. Not only must a man have a certain number of quarterings to be authorized to make his servants use such things, but he must pay so much tax for the lacquey, so much for the wig, so much for the tail to the wig, and so much for the cane."
What most strikes a Frenchman in London—
"The coldness of the men towards the fair sex, and their profound passion for horses."