Saone and Loire

Each of the departments is divided into districts, and each diftrict into cantons. The first column that follows is a lift of the eighty-three departments in alphabetical order: the fecond column contains the names of the provinces or territories to which the countries included in each department formerly belonged. The departments marked thus take their name from mountains; thofe marked thus from their respective fituations; this marked thus ‡ from a rock; and the others (the departments of Paris, Cote d'Or, and Corfica excepted) from rivers; as the departments of the Ain, of the Eure and Loire, of the Two Sevres, &c.

*

Ancient Provinces. Breffe

Soiffonnois & Ver

mandois

Bourbonnois

Dauphiny

Dauphiny

Champagne

Couferans & Foix

Pamiers

Gers.
Lower Pyrenées
Upper Pyrenées
Arricge

Departments.

Ain

Aifne

Perpignan

Eaftern Pyrenées

Allier

Alps, Upper

Alps, Lower * Ardeche

Provence

Ardennes

Aveiron

Rouergue

Calvados +

Normandy

Rhone.

Charente

Angoumois

Charente, Lower

Aunis & Saintonge

Berry

Limofin

Valence

SIR,

YOU!

OUR valuable mifcellany has furvived many good old cuftoms and practices, which we in this age would have known little of, but for fo faithful a record. And I hope you will perfevere in exhibiting to pofterity, fuch a • brief chronicle of the times,' as may inftruct or amufe them, as we have been inftructed and amufed by the manners of our ancestors.

The fubject on which I am to addrefs you is, I believe, a virgin. I know not at leaft that it has been touched by any late writer, and I hope you will admit that it has fome claims on your attention, merely on the fcore of originality.

I lay it down as a principle incontrovertible, that the purpose of our parties of pleasure, whether held at each others' houfes or in taverns, is, to make one another happy and comfortable. But were this purpofe always or even often anfwered, there would have been no occafion to trouble you with this letter, So far, however, is that from being the cafe, that I, who belong to the old fchool' of manners and cuftoms, are feldom more unhappy than when invited to what are called parties of pleasure.

Why they operate thus upon me must be gathered from my regular habits of life, habits contracted in my youth, and which old age will not now allow me to depart from. I rife early; I breakfait early; and I feel an inclination for the fubftantial meal,' much about the fame hour that it came on me fifty years ago. To this let me add, that I am obliged, from motives of health, to go to bed early; and have at the fame time a frong propenfity toward company of the cheerful and focial kind.

After this declaration, you will not be furprised, if I find myfelf ili at cafe, from being obliged to conform

5

to the reigning manners.-What is the mode now, fir, of giving invitations?-An hour is appointed for dinner, always a late one, and the rule is-never to keep it. Punctuality is not only unfashionable (for to be unfashionable might be pardoned at my time of life) but is really difreputable. It is fomething that is always mentioned to a man's difcredit, as what he ought to be ashamed of, as what nobody does who knows the world,' and confequently as what can never be expected according to the etiquette of good breeding.

An hour, as I have obferved, is mentioned, and very frequently the word exactly is added to it, as if it were not enough to tranfgrefs the truth, but it must be done in a formal and folemn manner. "You asked me to dine at five,' faid I to a gentleman the other day, and you fee I am come at five. My dear fir,' replied he, have you lived fo fhort a time in the world, as not to know that five means half past five, or perhaps a quarter before fix ?

Now, Mr. Editor, (for I did not argue the point with my friend) can you inform me whether my living long in the world would have been fufficient to convert one hour into another? By what logic can five o'clock mean half past five? If there be a pofitive law on this fubject, why is it not promulgated for the benefit of us who lived in days when most words had but one meaning, when five meant five, and fix, fix? But if five is really to mean half past five, and I have not lived long enough to know it, in what a deplorable ftate of ignorance did thofe examples of longevity, the antediluvians, expire? I have great reafon to believe that the oldeft of them never conceived that fun-rifing meant fun-fetting.

The fact, however, is, though I

canst

cannot make out the rationale of it, that whatever hour be fixed, it is proper and becoming not to keep it. Now, fir, this law is not fufficiently exprefs and limited, which is indeed the cafe with the common law of this kingdom, and makes it far inferior to the ftatute law in point of certainty. For there is no time fixed for the excefs over the hour. This excefs is regulated by the most indefinite and uncertain of all earthly things. As far as my obfervation goes, it depends entirely on the rank of the parties. A citizen, for inftance, must not exceed ten minutes over the hour; a member of parliament may go as far as half an hour; a lord may give great uneafinefs to the hoft and hoftefs; and a duke, I fuppofe, may ftarve the guests and fpoil the dinner.

A man of confequnce, or one who thinks himself a man of confequence, for the expreffions are fynonymous, feems to have a right to every indulgence of this kind, and if twenty perfons are met together, all keenly bent on the feaft, and the feat more than ready, not a difh must be served up before the man of confequence arrives; because, if it were otherwife, the lady of the house would be deprived of an opportunity to pay him the greatest poffible compliment, by calling aloud John, order the dinner up now! But, Mr. Editor, is this irregularity, though fashionable, really agreeable? So far from it, that I never go into a party of pleafare without hearing peevith whispers about making people wait,' and spoiling one's dinner. Who, then, fhall break the fpell that thus enchants us to our felftormen ing? The experiment would be a bold one, and indeed attended with fo much danger that no perfon of fashion would venture to make it. For, no inconvenience, whether imaginary or real, no uneafinefs, comic or ferious, is to be put in competition with the high honour of being vifited by perfons who are above keeping their time. Whoever, therefore, would dare to infringe on a law fo binding,

must expect to fit down with none but toad-eaters, led captains and poor relations, who have more inducements than one for being punctual at the dinner hour.

The ideas I mean to throw out, as they can never be carried into prac tice, will, I hope, pafs for one of thofe harmless fpeculations in which old men and politicians fometimes indulge themselves.

I beg leave, then, to propofe, that a party of pleasure fhall in all time forthcoming, be confidered as any other company or body of men met to tranfact business; nor will this propofal appear fo abfurd if you confider how many men make pleafure their only bufinefs. This being granted, I would wish to eftablish in parties of pleasure, that fovereign, fensible, and judicious law, which governs in all meetings upon bufinefs; namely, that the majority is greater than the mi nority, that the majority have a right to proceed without the minority, and that the majority may decide even if the minority are prefent.

Nothing furely can be more equitable than this. To apply it to the cafe in point. I fay, that, where twelve perfons are invited to a party of pleasure, feven fhall be confidered. as a quorum fit to proceed to the bufinefs of the meeting, provided the remaining five do not appear within the hour appointed. This would be just and proper; and fuch a compliment paid to punctuality, might perhaps tend to bring punctuality once more into public life. As matters are at prefent, I cannot conceive a greater abfurdity, than that eleven perfons fhould be obliged to wait in difagreeable sufpenfe, for one who perhaps is in no refpect their fuperior, and who, when he enters, offers a paltry excufe for which a fchoolboy would be whipt.

This, fir, is my humble propofal. I have already ftated, that there woul be danger in adopting it, and therefore I hope it will be confidered as the whim of an old man, whofe vifits cannot long be of importance to anƒ

on,