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REGNARD’S JOURNEY TO LAPLAND. 225
countenance ; he began to prepare the moft excellent letters of exchange that were
ever made by the moft celebrated banker ;_ but unfortunately neither ink nor paper were
found in the houfe. I afterwards afked to fee his horfes; the fcoundrel perceived that
he was laughed at, and that he had to do with men as intelligent as himfelf. I never
faw aman more confounded in my life, and we amufed ourfelves with repeating his
ufual phrafe, Italiani non fono miga crilloni ; and we faid Francef, inftead of Italiani.
We threw in his teeth an infinite number of his deceptions, lies, and contradictions ;
and we had the pleafure of confounding the greateft {coundrel in the world.
Cracow is the chief city of Upper Poland, and is infinitely-more handfome, larger,
and has more trade than Warfaw. It is fituated on the Viftula, which takes its rife at
no great diftance. Its academy is much efteemed: it was founded, about three
hundred years ago, by Cafimir the Firft, who afked for profeffors from the colleges of
the Sorbonne at Paris, who were the caufes of that great reputation which it acquired.
The object moft worthy of notice in Cracow, is the caltle, fituated on a little hill; it is very
extenfive, but without form, or any regard to the rules of architecture ; the chambers
are {fpacious, and the cielings fuperbly gilt; on which account, this refidence might be
fitfor aking. In the church of the caftle, the tombs of the kings are to be feen ;
and they never inter one King, till another has been elected. King Cafimir and King
Michael were interred the fame day that the prefent King was crowned ; for they all
come to be crowned at Cracow.
The body of Saint Staniflas is in a fhrine of filver, placed in the middle of the church
and covered by a canopy. ‘This faint, who was killed by one of the Kings of Poland,
is the caufe why the Poles go with their heads fhaved, and eat no butter on Friday, and
fomeof them on Saturday ; this was impofed on them asa penance, by one of the
popes, during a hundred years; and this cuftom became a law, for although the time
of the penance had expired, they never ceafe to obferve this faft, and the cuftom of
fhaving the head.
There are few cities, I do not fay in Poland, but in all Europe, where there are more
churches, priefts, and particularly monks, than in Cracow. ‘They are as rich and as
much refpected here asin Italy ; and this is the reafon, why they are fo numerous.
With refpect to the churches, to do them juftice it muft be confefled, that the Poles are
extremely anxious about the beauty and the fervice of their churches; the gold fhines
in them on all fides ; and one is altonifhed to find a church gilt to the very vault, ina
wretched village, where it has been impoflible to procure a morfel of bread. ‘The
fineft churches in Cracow are the Dome, dedicated to Saint Mary, which is in the middle
of the fquare, the Minims, and the Bernardins; the Jefuits have a very beautiful one, lately
builtin the Italian manner. The great fquare is very {pacious, and the principal ftreets
branch out from it; chiefly the grand {treet, which leads to Cafimir, the refidence of the
Jews, who have in that place, their republic, their fynagogue, and their court of juftice.
Thefe gentlemen are no better treated in Poland than in Italy and Turkey, where they
are the dregs of the human race, and the fponge which is prefled from time to time,
and chiefly when the ftate isin danger. Although they were not diftinguifhed by any
particular mark, as in Italy, by a yellow hat, in Germany by a drefs, in Turkey by a
turban, in Poland by a ruff, it would be impoflible not to know them by their excom-
municated air, and their haggard looks. However rich they may be, they are unable to
leave off that villainous difpofition in which they were born, and which excites horror in
thofe who have feen them, chiefly in Poland, in the inns which they keep. ‘Throughout
the whole of Black Ruffia, where there are thirty or forty of them in a little chamber,
the children are naked as they were born, and the fathers and mothers are only half
VOL. I. GG covered,
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