CHAP. II.

Comparative View of the Spirit of Commerce in France, bem fore, and fince the Revolution.Paper Syftem.-Female Traders and Contractors.

IN France, a country fo near Switzerland in its geographical fituation, but fo distant in the character and difpofition of the people, things in this refpect are managed better; and although the French are lately become in fome fort also a nation of usurers and stock-jobbers, their mode of toiling for wealth, and their mode of spending it, are altogether different from the plodding usages of their neighbours.

The revolution which deftroyed monarchy in France, overthrew at the fame time the empire of ancient prejudices and habits. Before that event, vanity was the govern ing spring of French action, and the principal aim, and aliment of that vanity, was rank

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rank and titles. A trader only laboured to procure just money enough to purchase a charge of treasurer of France, or fecretairé du roi, and when thus honourably ennobled, confidered it as beneath his dignity to continue any longer that commerce which had ferved as the step-ladder to his elevation.

But the scene is now reverfed. Nobility exifts no longer, and opinions have undergone as great a revolution as titles and forThe poor are enriched; the rich

tunes.

are impoverished; labour is become neceffary; industry flourishes on the ruins of vanity; and, as the impetuous French are ever in extremes, their ancient difdain of mercantile occupations is fucceeded by a fort of rage for commerce. To this new fury they are animated, not only by the call of neceffity, but by the defire of enjoyment. This people, the ever ardent lovers of pleasure, pant to repair those mo

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ments of terror and defolation which were loft to their accustomed, their beloved gaieties. They seek amusement with new cagernefs, and the dangers which they find attendant on a revolution, only ferve to attach them more to the present moment, on the Epicurean principle of uncertainty respect→ ing the future.

Immenfe commercial refources are found in the fertility, the extent, the fituation, and the wants of the French Republic; but nothing can be more amufing than the va rious whimfical directions into which the active, restless genius of the people, have turned their present rage for traffic. All grafp at something strange, and fomething great; a new world feems opening to their view, and which all model after their own fashion. Every Every man has seized upon. fome profound discovery, fome happy specula

tion, which will infallibly pour forth an

ever-flowing stream of inexhaustible wealth. When one chimera fails, another swiftly fprings up; all is "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble;" fpurred by hope, or goaded by want, every man mounts the hobbyhorfe of his imagination, and whips it up to fome marvellous atchievement.

One citizen frames ftoves of

paper more durable than brafs or fteel; another erects mills that fcorn the aid of fire, wind, or water; another extracts new chemical fubstances, which, when applied to commerce, are to produce riches beyond the visions of the alchemifts. All announce that they have fet their inventive talents upon the anvil, merely for the good of their country; and as the ideas which the revolution has awakened, have given every individual in France fome floating notions of his own importance, every man, however ignorant or mistaken, boldly brings forward his infallible

fallible plan, infifts upon his right of being heard by his fellow-citizens, and calls upon every capitalift to hasten to him with his funds, and calculate, if he can, the enormous mafs of intereft with which the wings of every moment will be loaded.

Those who decline fetting up as inventors, and enlightening the world by difcoveries, although they refuse to travel through unknown tracts of commercial enterprize, at least engage in more beaten paths of gain. Throughout the wide extent of the Republic, Gothic abbies are transformed into manufactories, cloisters become work-fhops, chapels are converted into warehouses, the receffes of folitary fuperftition are invaded, and the hollow echoes of the long-refounding aifles, which were once only refponfive to the folemn flow-breathed chant, now repeat the rude diffo

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