--This tremendous flag is now suspended from a window of the Hotel de
Ville, where it is to remain until the inscription it wears shall no
longer be true; and I heartily wish, the distresses of the country may
not be more durable than the texture on which they are proclaimed.
Our journey is fixed for to-morrow, and all the morning has been passed
in attendance for our passports.--This affair is not so quickly
dispatched as you may imagine. The French are, indeed, said to be a very
lively people, but we mistake their volubility for vivacity; for in their
public offices, their shops, and in any transaction of business, no
people on earth can be more tedious--they are slow, irregular, and
loquacious; and a retail English Quaker, with all his formalities, would
dispose of half his stock in less time than you can purchase a three sols
stamp from a brisk French Commis. You may therefore conceive, that this
official portraiture of so many females was a work of time, and not very
pleasant to the originals. The delicacy of an Englishman may be shocked
at the idea of examining and registering a lady's features one after
another, like the articles of a bill of lading; but the cold and
systematic gallantry of a Frenchman is not so scrupulous.--The officer,
however, who is employed for this purpose here, is civil, and I suspected
the infinity of my nose, and the acuteness of Mad. de ____'s chin, might
have disconcerted him; but he extricated himself very decently.
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