_I.--The First Journey, 1787_
Arthur Young was born September 11, 1741, at Whitehall;
died April 20, 1820. Most of his life was spent on his
patrimonial estate at Bradfield Hall, near Bury St.
Edmunds, England. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Arthur
Young, rector of Bradfield, Prebendary of Canterbury
Cathedral, and Chaplain to Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the
House of Commons. On his father's death he took to
farming, but at the same time addicted himself to
literature, becoming a parliamentary reporter. Arthur
Young was indeed much more successful in literary pursuits
than in the practice of husbandry. His book entitled "A
Tour Through the Southern Counties of England" achieved
great popularity. This he actively followed by writing
other works describing agricultural conditions in various
parts of England, and in Ireland. His vivid and
interesting style secured for his treatises a very wide
circulation. In 1784 he commenced the issue of an annual
register entitled "The Annals of Agriculture" of which 45
volumes were published. Three years later an invitation
from the Comte de la Rochefoucauld induced Young to visit
France. He went a second and a third time, and created a
sensation by the publication of an account of his
experiences during the three consecutive years that
immediately preceded the Revolution. Arthur Young
travelled on horseback through many districts of France in
the midst of the disturbances. So realistic is his account
that it is regarded as the most reliable record ever
written of the French rural conditions of that period. The
French Directory ordered all Young's works to be
translated into French, and they are as popular as ever
to-day across the Channel.
There are two methods of writing travels; to register the journey
itself, or the result of it. In the former case it is a diary; the
latter usually falls into the shape of essays on distinct subjects. A
journal form has the advantage of carrying with a greater degree of
credibility; and, of course, more weight. A traveller who thus registers
his observations is detected the moment he writes of things he has not
seen. If he sees little, he must register little. The reader is saved
from imposition. On the other hand a diary necessarily leads to
repetitions on the same subjects and the same ideas.
In favour of composing essays there is the counterbalancing advantage
that the matter comes with the full effect of force and completeness
from the author. Another admirable circumstance is brevity, by the
rejection of all useless details. After weighing the _pour_ and the
_contre_, I think it not impracticable to retain in my case the benefit
of both plans.
JOURNAL. May 15. The strait that separates England, fortunately for her,
from the rest of the world, must be crossed many times before the
traveller ceases to be surprised at the sudden and universal change that
surrounds him on landing at Calais. The scene, the people, the language,
every object is new. The noble improvement of a salt marsh by Mons.
Mourons of this town, occasioned my acquaintance some time ago with that
gentleman. I spent an agreeable and instructive evening at his house.
May 17. Nine hours rolling at anchor had so fatigued my mare, that I
thought it necessary to rest her one day; but this morning I left
Calais. For a few miles the country resembles parts of Norfolk and
Suffolk. The aspect is the same on to Boulogne. Towards that town I was
pleased to find many seats belonging to people who reside there. How
often are false ideas conceived from reading and report. I imagined that
nobody but farmers and labourers in France lived in the country; and the
first ride I take in that kingdom shows me a score of country seats. The
road is excellent.
May 18. Boulogne is not an ugly town, and from the ramparts of the upper
part the view is beautiful. Many persons from England reside here, their
misfortunes in trade or extravagance in living making their sojourn
abroad more agreeable than at home.
The country around improves. It is more inclosed. There are some fine
meadows about Bonbrie, and several chateaux. I am not professedly on
husbandry in this diary, but must just observe, that it is to the full
as bad as the country is good; corn miserable and yellow with weeds, yet
all summer fallowed with lost attention.
May 22. Poverty and poor crops at Amiens. Women are now ploughing with a
pair of horses to sow barley. The difference of the customs of the two
nations is in nothing more striking than in the labours of the sex; in
England it is very little they will do in the fields except to glean and
make hay; the first is a party of pilfering, and the second of pleasure;
in France they plough and fill the dung-cart.
May 25. The environs of Clermont are picturesque. The hills about
Liancourt are pretty and spread with a kind of cultivation I have never
seen before, a mixture of vineyards (for here the vines first appear),
gardens and corn. A piece of wheat, a scrap of lucorne, a patch of
clover or vetches, a bit of vine with cherry and other fruit trees
scattered among all, and the whole cultivated with the spade; it makes a
pretty appearance, but must form a poor system of trifling.
The forest around Chantilly, belonging to the Prince of Condé, is
immense, spreading far and wide. They say the capitainerie, or
paramountship, is above 100 miles in circumference. That is to say, all
the inhabitants for that extent are pestered with game, without
permission to destroy it, for one man's diversion. Ought not these
capitaineries to be extirpated?
May 27. At Versailles. After breakfasting with Count de la Rochefoucauld
at his apartments in the palace, where he is grand master of the
wardrobe, was introduced by him to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. As the
duke is going to Luchon in the Pyrenees, I am to have the honour of
being one of the party. The ceremony of the day was the king's investing
the Duke of Berri with the _cordon bleu_. The queen's band was in the
chapel during the function, but the musical effect was thin and weak.
During the service the king was seated between his two brothers, and
seemed by his carriage and inattention to wish himself a hunting. The
queen is the most beautiful woman I saw to-day.
May 30. At Orleans. The country around is one universal flat,
unenclosed, uninteresting, and even tedious, but the prospect from the
steeple of the fine cathedral is commanding, extending over an unbounded
plain, through which the magnificent Loire bends his stately way, in
sight for 14 leagues.
May 31. On leaving Orleans, enter the miserable province of Sologne. The
poor people who cultivate the soil here are métayers, that is, men who
hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to
provide seed and cattle, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a
miserable system that perpetuates poverty and prevents instruction. The
same wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are scenes of
pitiable management, as the houses are full of misery. Heaven grant me
patience while I see a country thus neglected, and forgive me the oaths
I swear at the absence and ignorance of the possessors.
June 11. See for the first time the Pyrenees, at the distance of 150
miles. Towards Cahors the country changes and has something of a savage
aspect, yet houses are seen everywhere, and one-third of it under vines.
The town is bad; its chief trade and resource are wines and brandies.
June 14. Reach Toulouse, which is a very large and very ancient city,
but not peopled in proportion to its size. It has had a university since
1215 and has always prided itself on its taste for literature and art.
The noble quay is of great length.
June 16. A ridge of hills on the other side of the Garonne, which began
at Toulouse, became more and more regular yesterday; and is undoubtedly
the most distant ramification of the Pyrenees, reaching into this vast
vale quite to Toulouse, but no farther. Approach the mountains; the
lower ones are all cultivated, but the higher ones seem covered with
wood. Meet many wagons, each loaded with two casks of wine, quite
backward in the carriage, and as the hind wheels are much higher than
the lower ones, it shows that these mountaineers have more sense than
John Bull.
The wheels of these wagons are all shod with wood instead of iron. Here
for the first time, see rows of maples, with vines trained in festoons
from tree to tree; they are conducted by a rope of bramble, vine
cutting, or willow. They give many grapes, but bad wine. Pass St.
Martino, and then a large village of well built houses, without a single
glass window.
June 17. St. Gaudens is an improving town, with many new houses,
something more than comfortable. An uncommon view of St. Bertrand. You
break at once upon a vale sunk deep enough beneath the point of view to
command every hedge and tree, with that town clustered round its large
cathedral, on a rising ground. The mountains rise proudly around, and
give their rough frame to this exquisite little picture. Immense
quantities of poultry in all this country; most of it the people salt
and keep in grease.
Quit the Garonne some leagues before Serpe, where the river Neste falls
into it. The road to Bagnére is along this river, in a narrow valley, at
one end of which is built the town of Luchon, the termination of our
journey; which has to me been one of the most agreeable I ever
undertook. Having now crossed the kingdom, and been in many French inns,
I shall in general observe, that they are on an average better in two
respects, and worse in all the rest, than those in England. We have
lived better in point of eating and drinking beyond a question, than we
should have done in going from London to the Highlands of Scotland, at
double the expense.
The common cookery of the French gives great advantage. It is true they
roast everything to a chip if they are not cautioned, but they give such
a number and variety of dishes, that if you do not like some, there are
others to please your palate. The dessert at a French inn has no rival
at an English one. But you have no parlour to eat in; only a room with
two, three, or four beds. Apartments badly fitted up; the walls
whitewashed; or paper of different sorts in the same room; or tapestry
so old as to be a fit _nidus_ for moths and spiders; and the furniture
such, that an English innkeeper would light his fire with it.
For a table you have everywhere a board laid on cross bars, which are so
conveniently contrived as to leave room for your legs only at the end.
Oak chairs with rush bottoms, and the back universally perpendicular,
defying all idea of rest after fatigue. Doors give music as well as
entrance; the wind whistles through their chinks; and hinges grate
discord. Windows admit rain as well as light; when shut they are not
easy to open; and when open not easy to shut.
Mops, brooms, and scrubbing brushes are not in the catalogue of the
necessaries of a French inn. Bells there are none; the _fille_ must
always be bawled for; and when she appears, is neither neat, well
dressed, nor handsome. The kitchen is black with smoke; the master
commonly the cook, and the less you see of the cooking the more likely
you are to have a stomach to your dinner. The mistress rarely classes
civility or attention to her guests among the requisites of her trade.
We are so unaccustomed in England to live in our bed-chambers that it is
at first awkward in France to find that people live nowhere else. Here I
find that everybody, let his rank be what it may, lives in his
bed-chamber.
_II.--Second Journey, 1788_
August 27. Cherbourg. Not a place for a residence longer than is
necessary. I was here fleeced more infamously than at any other town in
France.
Sept. 5. To Montauban. The poor people seem poor indeed; the children
terribly ragged, if possible worse clad than if with no clothes at all;
as to shoes and stockings, they are luxuries. A beautiful girl of six or
seven playing with a stick, and smiling under such a bundle of rags as
made my heart ache to see her. One-third of this province seems
uncultivated, and nearly all of it in misery. What have kings, and
ministers, and parliaments, and states, to answer for their prejudices,
seeing millions of hands that would be industrious, idle and starving
through the execrable maxims of despotism, or the equally detestable
prejudices of a feudal nobility. Sleep at the "Lion d'Or," at Montauban,
an abominable hole.
The 8th. Enter Bas Bretagne. One recognises at once another people,
meeting numbers who know no French. Enter Guingamp by gateways, towers,
and battlements, apparently the oldest military architecture; every part
denoting antiquity, and in the best preservation. The habitations of the
poor are miserable heaps of dirt; no glass, and scarcely any light; but
they have earth chimneys.
Sept. 21. Came to an improvement in the midst of sombre country. Four
good houses of stone and slate, and a few acres run to wretched grass,
which have been tilled, but all savage, and become almost as rough as
the rest. I was afterwards informed that this improvement, as it is
called, was wrought by Englishmen, at the expense of a gentleman they
ruined as well as themselves. I demanded how it had been done? Pare and
burn, and sow wheat, then rye, and then oats. Thus it is for ever and
ever! The same follies, blundering, and ignorance; and then all the
fools in the country said as they do now, that these wastes are good for
nothing. To my amazement I find that they reach within three miles of
the great commercial city of Nantes.
The 22nd. At Nantes, a town which has that sign of prosperity of new
buildings that never deceives. The quarter of the Comédie is
magnificent, all the streets at right angles and of white stone. Messrs.
Epivent had the goodness to attend me in a water expedition, to view the
establishment of Mr. Wilkinson, for boring cannon, in an island on the
Loire, below Nantes. Until that well-known English manufacturer arrived,
the French knew nothing of the art of casting cannon solid, and then
boring them.
Nantes is as _enflammé_ in the cause of liberty as any town in France
can be. The conversations I have witnessed here prove how great a change
is effected in the mind of the French, nor do I believe it will be
possible for the present government to last half a century longer. The
American revolution has laid the foundation of another in France, if
government does not take care of itself. On the 23rd one of the twelve
prisoners from the Bastille arrived here--he was the most violent of
them all--and his imprisonment has not silenced him.
[AUTHOR'S NOTE.--It wanted no great spirit of prophecy to foretell this
revolution; but later events have shown that I was very wide of the mark
when I talked of fifty years. The twelve gentlemen of Bretagne deputed
to Versailles, mentioned above, were sent with a denunciation of the
ministers for their suspension of provincial parliaments. They were at
once sent to the Bastille. It was this war of the king and the
parliaments that brought about the assembly of the States General, the
step being decided on by the assembly of Grenoble, July 21, 1788.]
_III.--Third Journey, 1789_
June 5. Passage to Calais; 14 hours for reflection in a vehicle that
does not allow one power to reflect.
The 8th. At Paris, which is at present in such a ferment about the
States General, now holding at Versailles, that conversation is
absolutely absorbed by them. The nobility and clergy demand one thing,
the commons another. The king, court, nobility, clergy, army, and
parliament are nearly in the same situation. All these consider, with
equal dread, the ideas of liberty, now afloat; except the king, who, for
reasons obvious to those who know his character, troubles himself
little, even with circumstances that concern his character the most
intimately.
The 9th. The business going forward at present in the pamphlet shops of
Paris is incredible. Every hour produces something new. This spirit of
reading political tracts spreads into the provinces, so that all presses
of France are equally employed. Nineteen-twentieths of these productions
are in favour of liberty, and commonly violent against the clergy and
nobility. Is it not wonderful, that while the press teems with the most
levelling and seditious principles, that if put into execution would
overturn the monarchy, nothing in reply appears, and not the least step
is taken by the court to restrain this extreme licentiousness of
publication? It is easy to conceive the spirit that must thus be raised
among the people.
The 10th. Everything conspires to render the present period in France
critical. The want of bread is terrible, and accounts arrive every
moment from the provinces of riots and disturbances, and calling in the
military, to preserve the peace of the markets. It appears that there
would have been no real scarcity if M. Necker would have let the corn
trade alone.
The 15th. This has been a rich day, and such an one as ten years ago
none could believe would ever arrive in France. Went to the Hall of
States at Versailles, a very important debate being expected on the
condition of the nation. M. l'Abbé Sieyès opened it. He is a violent
republican, absolutely opposed to the present government, which he
thinks too bad to be regulated, and wishes to see overturned. He speaks
ungracefully and uneloquently, but logically.
M. le Comte de Mirabeau replied, speaking without notes for near an hour
in most eloquent style. He opposed with great force the reasoning of the
Abbé, and was loudly applauded.
The 20th. News! News! Everyone stares at what everyone might have
expected. A message from the king to the presidents of the three orders,
that he should meet them on Monday; and, under pretence of preparing the
hall for the occasion, the French guards were placed with bayonets to
prevent any of the deputies entering the room. The circumstances of
doing this ill-judged act of violence have been as ill-advised as the
act itself.
The 24th. The ferment at Paris is beyond conception. All this day 10,000
people have been in the Palais Royal. M. Necker's plans of finance are
severely criticised, even by his friends.
The 26th. Every hour that passes seems to give the people fresh spirit.
The meetings at the palais are more numerous and more violent. Nothing
less than a revolution in the government and a free constitution is
talked of by all ranks of people; but the supine stupidity of the court
is without example. The king's offers of negotiation have been rejected.
He changes his mind from day to day.
The 30th. At Nangis, having come from Paris. Entertained at the château
of the Marquis de Guerchy. The perruquier in the town that dressed me
this morning tells me that everybody is determined to pay no taxes; that
the soldiers will never fire on the people; but if they should, it is
better to be shot, than starved. He gave me a frightful account of the
misery of the people. In the market I saw the wheat sold out under the
regulation of the magistrates, that no person should buy more than two
bushels of wheat at a market, to prevent monopolising. A party of
dragoons had been drawn up before the market-cross to prevent violence.
The 15th. At Nancy. Letters from Paris announce that all is confusion.
The ministry has been removed and M. Necker ordered to quit France
quietly. All to whom I spoke agreed that it was fatal news and that it
would occasion great commotion. I am told on every hand that everything
is to be feared from the people, because bread is so dear, they are half
starved, and consequently ready for commotion. But they are waiting on
Paris, which shows the importance of great cities in the life of a
nation. Without Paris, I question whether the present revolution, which
is fast working in France, could have had an origin.
The 20th. To Strasburg, through one of the richest scenes of cultivation
in France, though Flanders exceeds it. I arrived there at a critical
moment, for a detachment of troops had brought interesting news of the
revolt in Paris--the Gardes Françoises joining the people; the little
dependence on the rest of the troops; the storming of the Bastille; in a
word, of the absolute overthrow of the old government.
The 21st. I have been witness to scenes curious to a foreigner, but
dreadful to Frenchmen who are considerate. Passing through the square of
the Hotel de Ville, the mob was breaking the windows with stones,
notwithstanding an officer and detachment of horse were there.
Perceiving that the troops would not attack them, except in words and
menaces, the rioters grew more violent, broke the windows of the Hotel
de Ville with stones, attempted to beat in the door with iron bars, and
placed ladders to the windows.
In about a quarter of an hour, which gave time for the assembled
magistrates to escape by a back door, they burst all open, and entered
like a torrent with a universal shout of spectators. From that minute a
shower of casements, sashes, shutters, chairs, tables, sofas, books,
papers, pictures, etc., rained incessantly from all the windows of the
house, which is eighty feet long, and next followed tiles, skirting
boards, banisters, frame-work, and everything that could be detached
from the building. The troops, both horse and foot, were quiet
spectators.
The 30th. At Dijon. At the inn here is a gentleman, unfortunately a
seigneur, with wife, three servants, and infant, who escaped from their
flaming château half naked in the night; all their property lost except
the land itself--and this family, valued and esteemed by the neighbours,
with many virtues to command the love of the poor, and no oppressions to
provoke their enmity. Such abominable actions must bring the more
detestation to the cause from being unnecessary; the kingdom might have
been settled in a real system of liberty, without the _regeneration_ of
fire and sword, plunder, and bloodshed.
August 19. At Thuytz. At eleven at night, a full hour after I had been
asleep, the commander of a file of citizen militia, with their muskets,
swords, sabres, and pikes entered my chamber, surrounded my bed, and
demanded my passport; I was forced to give it, and also my papers. They
told me I was undoubtedly a conspirator with the queen, the Comte
d'Artois, and the Comte d'Entragues (who has property here), who had
employed me as a surveyor to measure their fields, in order to double
their taxes. My papers being in English saved me. But I had a narrow
escape. It would have been a delicate situation to have been kept a
prisoner probably in some common gaol, while they sent a courier to
Paris at my expense.