I am, however, far from
imputing either of them to the revolution. This grossness of behavior
has long existed under the palliating description of _"la franchise
Picarde,"_ ["Picardy frankness."] and the floors and stairs of many
houses will attest their preeminence in filth to be of a date much
anterior to the revolution.--If you purchase to the amount of an hundred
livres, there are many shopkeepers who will not send your purchases home;
and if the articles they show you do not answer your purpose, they are
mostly sullen, and often rude. No appearance of fatigue or infirmity
suggests to them the idea of offering you a seat; they contradict you
with impertinence, address you with freedom, and conclude with cheating
you if they can. It was certainly on this account that Sterne would not
agree to die at the inn at Amiens. He might, with equal justice, have
objected to any other house; and I am sure if he thought them an
unpleasant people to die amongst, he would have found them still worse to
live with.--My observation as to the civility of aristocrates does not
hold good here--indeed I only meant that those who ever had any, and were
aristocrates, still preserved it.
Amiens has always been a commercial town, inhabited by very few of the
higher noblesse; and the mere gentry of a French province are not very
much calculated to give a tone of softness and respect to those who
imitate them.
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