Louis Racine died, and so did Marivaux, while he was in Paris. The old
Opera-house in the Palais Royal was burnt down when he had been there
a little over a month, and the representations were transferred to the
Salle des Machines, in the Tuileries. The equestrian statue of Louis
XV. was set up in the Place to which it gave its name (where the Luxor
column now stands, in the Place de la Concorde) amidst the jeers and
insults of the mob, who declared it would never be got to pass the
hotel of Madame de Pompadour. How much or how little of all this
touched Gibbon, we do not know. We do know one thing, that his English
clothes were unfashionable and looked very foreign, the French being
"excessively long-waisted." Doubtless his scanty purse could not
afford a new outfit, such as Walpole two years afterwards, under the
direction of Lady Hertford, promptly procured. On the 8th of May he
hurried off to Lausanne.[5]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: The chronicle of events which occurred during Gibbon's
sojourn in Paris will be found in the interesting _Memoires de
Bachaumont._]
His ultimate object was Italy.
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