 experience had taught him to be apprehensive
of all such travellers, who commonly lay the landlord under contribution, by way
of atonement for the extravagance of his demands, even after he has professed
his willingness to entertain them on their own terms.
 

                                  Chapter LIV

Peregrine moralizes upon their Behaviour, which is condemned by the Doctor, and
defended by the Governor. They arrive in Safety at Lisle, dine at an Ordinary,
visit the Citadel. The Physician quarrels with a North-Briton, who is put in
Arrest
 
These honourable adventurers being gone, Peregrine, who was present during the
transaction, informed himself of the particulars from the mouth of the
inn-keeper himself, who took God and the saints to witness, that he should have
been a loser by their custom, even if the bill had been paid; because he was on
his guard against their objections, and had charged every article at an under
price: but such was the authority of officers in France, that he durst not
dispute the least circumstance of their will; for had the case come under the
cognizance of the magistrate, he must in course have suffered by the maxims of
their government, which never fail to abet the oppression of the army; and
besides, run the risque of incurring their future resentment, which would be
sufficient to ruin him from top to bottom.
    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 preheminence, 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 inn-keeper 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, justled 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.
