"'Tis true, as all equipages are forbidden, that expense is entirely retrenched....

The way of living is absolutely the reverse of that in Italy.

Here is no show, and a great deal of eating; there is all the magnificence imaginable, and no dinners but on particular occasions; yet the difference of the prices renders the total expense very near equal....
The people here are very well to be liked, and this little republic has an air of the simplicity of old Rome in its earliest age.

The magistrates toil with their own hands, and their wives literally dress their dinners against their return from their little senate.

Yet without dress and equipage 'tis as dear living here for a stranger, as in places where one is obliged to both, from the price of all sort of provision, which they are forced to buy from their neighbours, having almost no land of their own." How much more agreeable, from Lady Mary's point of view, was Chambery: "Here is the most profound peace and unbounded plenty that is to be found in any corner of the universe; but not one rag of money.