Current Literature
THE WAITING CITY : PARIS 1782-88 By L. S. Mercier
Miss Helen Simpson has taken an immense amount of trouble in translating and annotating select passages from Louis Sebastien Mercier's Tableau_de Paris, under 'the title of The Waiting City : Paris, 1782-88 (Harrap, 12s. 6d.). Students of the French revolutionary period, from Carlyle onwards, have dipped into Mercier's twelve discursive and often unpleasant volumes, in which he described the myriad phases of Parisian life under the old regime for the amusement and often to the annoyance of his contemporaries. It is much pleasanter to make Mereiei's acquaintance through Miss Simpson, whose method is tftive a page or two from a short chapter of the original and to add a -substantial note, very often comparing Paris with the London of George III. Mercier was a pronounced Anglophile and-lost no opportunity of contrasting the demerits of French administration with the efficiency-and simplicity- of the English systern. By way of exception he disapproved of the light and high-built English vehicles known as " Whiskies " . as dangerous alike to drivers and- foot passengers: ,Hut he thought the English practice of kissing—" When an Englishman• is presented td 'a woman be must kiss her, and not on the cheek either; but square on the lips, a .proper kiss "preferable to the chilly French embrace, " mere cheek to cheek." Miss Simpson gives a representative series of Mercier's notes on manners and has collected some delightful illustrations of the period.
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