Our hero boiled with indignation at this instance of injustice and
arbitrary power; and, turning to his governor, asked, if this too
was a proof of the happiness enjoyed by the French people. Jolter
replied, that every human constitution must, in some things,
be imperfect and owned, that in this kingdom, gentlemen were more
countenanced than the vulgar, because it was to be presumed that
their own sentiments of honour and superior qualifications would
entitle them to this pre-eminence, which had also a retrospective
view to the merit of their ancestors, in consideration of which
they were at first ennobled; but he affirmed, that the innkeeper
had misrepresented the magistracy, which, in France, never failed
to punish flagrant outrages and abuse, without respect of persons.
The painter approved of the wisdom of the French government, in
bridling the insolence of the mob, by which, he assured them, he
had often suffered in his own person; having been often bespattered
by hackney-coachmen, jostled by draymen and porters, and reviled
in the most opprobrious terms by the watermen of London, where he
had once lost his bag and a considerable quantity of hair, which
had been cut off by some rascal in his passage through Ludgate,
during the Lord Mayor's procession.
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