John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

LEAVES LONDON FOR FRANCE. II
We have his reading and all his other occupations recorded
day by day, together with occasional reflections and discussions
that attest his thinking power at that age. The diary was regu
larly transmitted to his father. At first he writes in English ;
but, as one of the purposes of his visiting France was to learn
the language, he soon changes to French. Printed in full it
would be nearly as long as this chapter. I shall endeavour to
select some of the more illustrative details.
He left London on the i5th May, 1820, five days before
completing his fourteenth year ; travelling in company with
his father s Irish friend, Mr. Ensor. The diary recounts all
the incidents of the journey the coach to Dover, the passage
across, the thirty-three hours in the diligence to Paris. He
goes first to a hotel, but, on presenting an introduction by his
father to M. Say, he is invited to the house of that distinguished
political economist. The family of the Says an eldest son,
Horace Say, a daughter at home, the youngest son, Alfred, at
school en pension, but coming home on Saturday and Sunday,
and their mother devote themselves to taking him about
Paris. He gives his father an account of all the sights, but
without much criticism His moral indignation bursts forth
in his account of the Palais Royal, an
" immense building
belonging to the profligate Due d Orleans, who, having ruined
himself with debauchery, resolved to let the arcades of his
palace ",
to various tradesmen The
Sunday after his arrival
(May 21) is so hot that he does not go out, but plays at battle
dore and shuttlecock with Alfred Say. He delivers various
messages from his father and Bentham, and contracts new
acquaintances, from whom he receives farther attentions. The
most notable is the Count Berthollet, to whom he takes a
paper
from Bentham. Madame Berthollet showed him her
very beautiful garden, and desires him to call on his return ;
he learns afterwards that he was to meet Laplace. On the
27th, after nine days stay in Paris, he bids goodbye to Mr.