I suppose that the young girl was indebted for her virtue to that singular disease, and most likely, if it were common to all the fair sex, there would be fewer gallant women, unless we had different organs; for to pay for one moment of enjoyment at the expense both of the hearing and of the smell is to give too high a price.
Baletti, being in a hurry to reach Paris, where great preparations were being made for the birth of a Duke of Burgundy--for the duchess was near the time of her delivery--easily persuaded me to shorten my stay in Turin.

We therefore left that city, and in five days we arrived at Lyons, where I stayed about a week.
Lyons is a very fine city in which at that time there were scarcely three or four noble houses opened to strangers; but, in compensation, there were more than a hundred hospitable ones belonging to merchants, manufacturers, and commission agents, amongst whom was to be found an excellent society remarkable for easy manners, politeness, frankness, and good style, without the absurd pride to be met with amongst the nobility in the provinces, with very few honourable exceptions.

It is true that the standard of good manners is below that of Paris, but one soon gets accustomed to it.

The wealth of Lyons arises from good taste and low prices, and Fashion is the goddess to whom that city owes its prosperity.
Fashion alters every year, and the stuff, to which the fashion of the day gives a value equal, say to thirty, is the next year reduced to fifteen or twenty, and then it is sent to foreign countries where it is bought up as a novelty.
The manufacturers of Lyons give high salaries to designers of talent; in that lies the secret of their success.

Low prices come from Competition--a fruitful source of wealth, and a daughter of Liberty.
Therefore, a government wishing to establish on a firm basis the prosperity of trade must give commerce full liberty; only being careful to prevent the frauds which private interests, often wrongly understood, might invent at the expense of public and general interests.