The face of the country is like that from Chalons to Macon. The plains
are a dark rich loam, the hills a red loam of middling quality, mixed
generally with more or less coarse sand and grit, and a great deal of
small stone. Very little forest. The vineyards are mostly enclosed with
dry stone-wall. A few small cattle and sheep. Here, as in Burgundy, the
cattle are all white. This is the richest country I ever beheld. It
is about ten or twelve leagues in length, and three, four, or five
in breadth; at least that part of it, which is under the eye of a
traveller. It extends from the top of a ridge of mountains, running
parallel with the Saone, and sloping down to the plains of that river,
scarce any where too steep for the plough. The whole is thick set with
farm-houses, chateaux, and the bastides of the inhabitants of Lyons. The
people live separately, and not in villages. The hill-sides are in vine
and corn: the plains in corn and pasture. The lands are farmed either
for money, or on half-stocks. The rents of the corn-lands, farmed for
money, are about ten or twelve livres the arpent. A farmer takes perhaps
about one hundred and fifty arpents, for three, six, or nine years. The
first year they are in corn; the second in other small grain, with
which he sows red clover. The third is for the clover. The spontaneous
pasturage is of greensward, which they call fromenteau. When lands
are rented on half-stocks, the cattle, sheep, &c. are furnished by the
landlord. They are valued, and must be left of equal value. The increase
of these, as well as the produce of the farm is divided equally.
These leases are only from year to year. They have a method of mixing
beautifully the culture of vines, trees, and corn. Rows of fruit-trees
are planted about twenty feet apart. Between the trees, in the row, they
plant vines four feet apart, and espalier them. The intervals are sowed
alternately in corn, so as to be one year in corn, the next in pasture,
the third in corn, the fourth in pasture, &c. One hundred toises of
vines in length, yield generally about four pieces of wine. In Dauphine,
I am told, they plant vines only at the roots of the trees, and let
them cover the whole trees. But this spoils both the wine and the fruit.
Their wine, when distilled, yields but one-third its quantity in brandy.
The wages of a laboring man here are five louis; of a woman, one half.
The women do not work with the hoe: they only weed the vines, the corn,
&c, and spin. They speak a patois very difficult to understand. I
passed some time at the Chateau de Laye-Epinaye. Monsieur de Laye has a
seignory of about fifteen thousand arpents, in pasture, corn, vines,
and wood. He has over this, as is usual, a certain jurisdiction,
both criminal and civil. But this extends only to the first crude
examination, which is before his judges. The subject is referred,
for final examination and decision, to the regular judicatures of the
country. The Seigneur is keeper of the peace on his domains. He
is therefore subject to the expenses of maintaining it. A criminal
prosecuted to sentence and execution costs M. de Laye about five
thousand livres. This is so burthensome to the Seigneurs, that they are
slack in criminal prosecutions. A good effect from a bad cause. Through
all Champagne, Burgundy, and the Beaujolois, the husbandry seems good,
except that they manure too little. This proceeds from the shortness of
their leases. The people of Burgundy and Beaujolois are well clothed,
and have the appearance of being well fed. But they experience all the
oppressions which result from the nature of the general government, and
from that of their particular tenures, and of the seignorial government
to which they are subject. What a cruel reflection, that a rich country
cannot long be a free one. M. de Laye has a Diana and Endymion, a very
superior morsel of sculpture by Michael Angelo Slodtz, done in 1740. The
wild gooseberry is in leaf; the wild pear and sweet-briar in bud.
_Lyons_. There are some feeble remains here of an amphitheatre of two
hundred feet diameter, and of an aqueduct in brick. The Pont d’Ainay has
nine arches of forty feet from centre to centre. The piers are of six
feet. The almond is in bloom.
DAUPHINE. From _St. Fond_ to _Mornant_. March 15, 16, 17, 18. The Rhone
makes extensive plains, which lie chiefly on the eastern side, and are
often in two stages. Those of Montelimart are three,or four miles wide,
and rather good. Sometimes, as in the neighborhood of Vienne, the
hills come in precipices to the river, resembling then very much our
Susquehanna and its hill, except that the Susquehanna is ten times as
wide as the Rhone. The highlands are often very level. The soil both of
hill and plain, where there is soil, is generally tinged, more or less,
with red. The hills are sometimes mere masses of rock, sometimes a
mixture of loose stone and earth. The plains are always stony, and as
often as otherwise covered perfectly with a coat of round stones, of
the size of the fist, so as to resemble the remains of inundations, from
which all the soil has been carried away. Sometimes they are middling
good, sometimes barren. In the neighborhood of Lyons there is more corn
than wine. Towards Tains more wine than corn. From thence the plains,
where best, are in corn, clover, almonds, mulberries, walnuts: where
there is still some earth, they are in corn, almonds, and oaks. The
hills are in vines. There is a good deal of forest-wood near Lyons,
but not much afterwards. Scarcely any enclosures. There are a few small
sheep before we reach Tains; there the’number increases.
Nature never formed a country of more savage aspect, than that on
both sides the Rhone. A huge torrent rushes like an arrow between high
precipices, often of massive rock, at other times of loose stone, with
but little earth. Yet has the hand of man subdued this savage scene, by
planting corn where there is a little fertility, trees where there is
still less, and vines where there is none. On the whole, it assumes a
romantic, picturesque, and pleasing air. The hills on the opposite
side of the river, being high, steep, and laid up in terraces, are of
a singular appearance. Where the hills are quite in waste, they are
covered with broom, whins, box, and some clusters of small pines. The
high mountains of Dauphine and Languedoc are now covered with snow. The
almond is in general bloom, and the willow putting out its leaf. There
were formerly olives at Tain; but a great cold, some years ago, killed
them, and they have not been replanted. I am told at Montelimart, that
an almond tree yields about three livres profit a year. Supposing them
three toises apart, there will be one hundred to the arpent, which
gives three hundred livres a year, besides the corn growing on the same
ground. A league below Vienne, on the opposite side of the river, is
Cote Rotie. It is a string of broken hills, extending a league on the
river, from the village of Ampuis to the town of Condrieu. The soil
is white, tinged a little, sometimes, with yellow, sometimes with red,
stony, poor, and laid up in terraces. Those parts of the hills only,
which look to the sun at mid-day, or the earlier hours of the afternoon,
produce wines of the first quality. Seven hundred vines, three feet
apart, yield a _feuillette_, which is about two and a half _pièces_,
to the arpent. The best red wine is produced at the upper end, in the
neighborhood of Ampuis; the best white, next to Condrieu. They sell of
the first quality and last vintage, at one hundred and fifty livres the
_pièce_, equal to twelve sous the bottle. Transportation to Paris is
sixty livres, and the bottle four sous; so it may be delivered at Paris
in bottles, at twenty sous. When old, it costs ten or eleven louis the
_pièce_. There is a quality which keeps well, bears transportation, and
cannot be drunk under four years. Another must be drunk at a year old.
They are equal in flavor and price.
The wine called Hermitage, is made on the hills impending over the
village of Tain; on one of which is the hermitage which gives name to
the hills for about two miles, and to the wine made on them. There are
but three of those hills which produce wine of the first quality, and
of these, the middle regions only. They are about three hundred feet
perpendicular height, three quarters of a mile in length, and have a
southern aspect. The soil is scarcely tinged red, consists of small
rotten stone, and is, where the best wine is made, without any
perceptible mixture of earth. It is in sloping terraces. They use a
little dung. An _homme de vignes_, which consists of seven hundred
plants, three feet apart, yields generally about three quarters of a
_pièce_, which is nearly four _pièces_ to the arpent. When new, the
pièce is sold at about two hundred and twenty-five livres; when old, at
three hundred. It cannot be drunk under four years, and improves fastest
in a hot situation. There is so little white made in proportion to the
red, that it is difficult to buy it separate. They make the white sell
the red. If bought separately, it is from fifteen to sixteen louis the
pièce, new, and three livres the bottle, old. To give quality to
the red, they mix one eighth of white grapes. Portage to Paris is
seventy-two livres the pièce, weighing six hundred pounds. There are but
about one thousand _pièces_ of both red and white, of the first quality,
made annually. Vineyards are never rented here, nor are laborers in the
vineyard hired by the year. They leave buds proportioned to the strength
of the vine, sometimes as much as fifteen inches. The last hermit died
in 1751.
In the neighborhood of Montelimart, and below that, they plant vines in
rows, six, eight, or ten feet apart, and two feet asunder in the row,
filling the intervals with corn. Sometimes the vines are in double rows,
two feet apart. I saw single asses in ploughs proportioned to their
strength. There are few chateaux in this province. The people, too,
are mostly gathered into villages. There are, however, some scattering
farm-houses. These are made either of mud, or of round stone and mud.
They make enclosures also, in both those ways. Day-laborers receive,
sixteen or eighteen sous the day, and feed themselves. Those by the year
receive, men three louis, women half that, and are fed. They rarely eat
meat; a single hog, salted, being the year’s stock for a family. But
they have plenty of cheese, eggs, potatoes, and other vegetables, and
walnut oil with their salad. It is a trade here, to gather dung along
the road for their vines. This proves they have few cattle. I have seen
neither hares nor partridges since I left Paris, nor wild fowl on any
of the rivers. The roads from Lyons to St. Rambert are neither paved
nor gravelled. After that, they are coated with broken flint. The
ferry-boats on the Rhone and the Isere, are moved by the stream, and
very rapidly. On each side of the river is a moveable stage, one end of
which is on an axle and two wheels, which, according to the tide, can
be advanced or withdrawn, so as to apply to the gunwale of the boat. The
Praetorian Palace at Vienne, is forty-four feet wide, of the Corinthian
order, four columns in front, and four in flank. It was begun in the
year 400, and finished by Charlemagne.
The sepulchral Pyramid, a little way out of the town, has an order for
its basement, the pedestal of which, from point to point of its cap,
is twenty-four feet, one inch. At each angle, is a column, engaged one
fourth in the wall. The circumference of the three fourths disengaged,
is four feet four inches; consequently, the diameter is twenty-three
inches. The base of the column indicates it to be Ionic, but the
capitals are not formed. The cornice, too, is a bastard Ionic, without
modillions or dentils. Between the columns, on each side, is an arch of
eight feet, four inches, opening with a pilaster on each side of it. On
the top of the basement is a zocle, in the plane of the frieze below.
On that is the pyramid, its base in the plane of the collarins of the
pilaster below. The pyramid is a little truncated on its top. This
monument is inedited.
March 18. _Principality of Orange_. The plains on the Rhone here, are
two or three leagues wide, reddish, good, in corn, clover, almonds,
olives. No forests. Here begins the country of olives, there being very
few till we enter this principality. They are the only tree which I see
planted among vines. Thyme grows wild here on the hills. Asses, very
small, sell here for two or three louis. The high hills in Dauphine are
covered with snow. The remains of the Roman aqueduct are of brick: a
fine pièce of Mosaic, still on its bed, forming the floor of a cellar.
Twenty feet of it still visible. They are taking down the circular wall
of the Amphitheatre to pave a road.
March 19 to 23. LANGUEDOC. _Pont-St.-Esprit. Bagnols. Connaux.
Valignitres. Remoulins. St. Gervasy. Vismes. Pont d’Aries._ To
Remoulins, there is a mixture of hill and dale. Thence to Nismes, hills
on the right, on the left, plains extending to the Rhone and the sea.
The hills are rocky. Where there is soil, it is reddish and poor. The
-plains generally reddish and good, but stony. When you approach the
Rhone, going to Arles, the soil becomes a dark gray loam with some sand,
and very good. The culture is corn, clover, saintfoin, olives, vines,
mulberries, willow, and some almonds. There is no forest. The hills are
enclosed in dry stone-wall. Many sheep.
From the summit of the first hill, after leaving Pont-St.-Esprit, there
is a beautiful view of the bridge at about two miles’ distance, and a
fine landscape of the country both ways. From thence, an excellent
road, judiciously conducted, through very romantic scenes. In one part,
descending the face of a hill, it is laid out in serpentine, and not
zigzag, to ease the descent. In others, it passes through a winding
meadow, from fifty to one hundred yards wide, walled, as it were, on
both sides, by hills of rock; and at length issues into plain country.
The waste hills are covered with thyme, box, and chene-vert. Where the
body of the mountains has a surface of soil, the summit has sometimes a
crown of rock, as observed in Champagne. At Nismes, the earth is full of
lime-stone. The horses are shorn. They are now pruning the olive. A very
good tree produces sixty pounds of olives, which yield fifteen pounds of
oil: the best quality selling at twelve sous the pound, retail, and ten
sous, wholesale. The high hills of Languedoc still covered with snow.
The horse-chestnut and mulberry are leafing; apple trees and peas
blossoming. The first butterfly I have seen. After the vernal equinox,
they are often six or eight months without rain. Many separate
farm-houses, numbers of people in rags, and abundance of beggars. The
_mine_ of wheat, weighing thirty pounds, costs four livres and ten
sous. Wheat bread, three sous the pound. _Vin ordinaire_, good, and of
a strong body, two or three sous the bottle. Oranges, one sous
apiece. They are nearly finishing at Nismes a great mill, worked by a
steam-engine, which pumps water from a lower into an upper cistern, from
whence two overshot wheels are supplied, each of which turns two pair
of stones. The upper cistern being once filled with water, it passes
through the wheels into the lower one, from whence it is returned to the
upper by the pumps. A stream of water of one quarter or one half inch
diameter, supplies the waste of evaporation, absorption, fee. This is
furnished from a well by a horse. The arches of the Pont-St.-Esprit
are of eighty-eight feet. Wild figs, very flourishing, grow out of the
joints of the Pont-du-Gard. The fountain of Nismes is so deep, that a
stone was thirteen seconds descending from the surface to the bottom.
March 24. From Nismes to Arles. The plains extending from Nismes to the
Rhone, in the direction of Aries, are broken in one place by a skirt
of low hills. They are red and stony at first, but as you approach the
Rhone, they are of a dark gray mould, with a little sand, and very good.
They are in corn and clover, vines, olives, almonds, mulberries, and
willow. There are some sheep, no wood, no enclosures.
The high hills of Languedoc are covered with snow. At an ancient church,
in the suburbs of Aries, are some hundreds of ancient stone coffins,
along the road-side. The ground is thence called _Les Champs Elysees_.
In a vault in a church, are some curiously wrought, and in a back yard
are many ancient statues, inscriptions, &c. Within the town are a part
of two Corinthian columns, and of the pediment with which they were
crowned, very rich, having belonged to the ancient capitol of the place.
But the principal monument here, is an amphitheatre, the external
portico of which is tolerably complete. How many porticoes there were,
cannot be seen; but at one of the principal gates there are still five,
measuring, from out to in, seventy-eight feet, ten inches, the vault
diminishing inwards. There are sixty-four arches, each of which is, from
centre to centre, twenty feet, six inches. Of course, the diameter is of
four hundred and thirty-eight feet; or of four hundred and fifty feet,
if we suppose the four principal arches a little larger than the rest.
The ground floor is supported on innumerable vaults. The first story,
externally, has a tall pedestal, like a pilaster, between every two
arches; the upper story, a column, the base of which would indicate it
Corinthian. Every column is truncated as low as the impost of the arch,
but the arches are all entire. The whole of the upper entablature is
gone, and of the Attic, if there was one. Not a single seat of the
internal is visible. The whole of the inside, and nearly the whole
of the outside, is masked by buildings. It is supposed there are one
thousand inhabitants within the amphitheatre. The walls are more entire
and firm than those of the _ampitheatre_ at Nismes. I suspect its plan and
distribution to have been very different from that.
_Terrasson_. The plains of the Rhone from Arles to this place, are
a league or two wide; the mould is of a dark gray, good, in corn and
lucerne. Neither wood, nor enclosures. Many sheep.
_St. Remy_. From Terrasson to St. Remy, is a plain of a league or two
wide, bordered by broken hills of massive rock. It is gray and stony,
mostly in olives. Some almonds, mulberries, willows, vines, corn, and
lucerne. Many sheep. No forest, nor enclosures.
A laboring man’s wages here, are one hundred and fifty livres, a woman’s
half, and fed. Two hundred and eighty pounds of wheat sell for forty-two
livres. They make no butter here. It costs, when brought, fifteen sous
the pound. Oil is ten sous the pound. Tolerably good olive trees yield,
one with another, about twenty pounds of oil. An olive tree must be
twenty years old before it has paid its own expenses. It lasts for ever.
In 1765, it was so cold, that the Rhone was frozen over at Aries for two
months. In 1767, there was a cold spell of a week, which killed all the
olive trees. From being fine weather, in one hour there was ice hard
enough to bear a horse. It killed people on the road. The old roots of
the olive trees put out again. Olive grounds sell for twenty-four livres
a tree, and lease at twenty-four sous the tree. The trees are fifteen
pieds apart. But lucerne is a more profitable culture. An arpent yields
one hundred quintals of hay a year, worth three livres the quintal.
It is cut four or five times a year. It is sowed in the broadcast, and
lasts five or six years. An arpent of ground for corn rents at from
thirty to thirty-six livres. Their leases are for six or nine years.
They plant willow for fire-wood, and for hoops to their casks. It
seldom rains here in summer. There are some chateaux, many separate
farm-houses, good, and ornamented in the small way, so as to show
that the tenant’s whole time is not occupied in procuring physical
necessaries.
March 25. _Orgon. Pontroyal. St. Cannat_. From Orgon to Pontroyal, after
quitting the plains of the Rhone, the country seems still to be a plain,
cut into compartments by chains of mountains of massive rock, running
through it in various directions. From Pontroyal to St. Cannat, the land
lies rather in basins. The soil is very various, gray and clay, gray and
stony, red and stony; sometimes good, sometimes middling, often barren.
We find some golden willows. Towards Pontroyal, the hills begin to be
in vines and afterwards in some pasture of greensward and clover. About
Orgon are some enclosures of quick-set, others of conical yews planted
close. Towards St. Cannat, they begin to be of stone.
The high mountains are covered with snow. Some separate farm-houses of
mud. Near Pontroyal is a canal for watering the country; one branch goes
to Terrasson, the other to Arles.
March 25, 26, 27, 28. _Aix_. The country is waving, in vines, pasture
of greensward and clover, much enclosed with stone, and abounding with
sheep.
On approaching Aix, the valley which opens from thence towards the mouth
of the Rhone and the sea, is rich and beautiful; a perfect grove of
olive trees, mixed among which are corn, lucerne, and vines. The waste
grounds throw out thyme and lavender. Wheat bread is three sous the
pound. Cow’s milk sixteen sous the quart, sheep’s milk six sous, butter
of sheep’s milk twenty sous the pound. Oil, of the best quality, is
twelve sous the pound, and sixteen sous if it be virgin oil. This
is what runs from the olive when put into the press, spontaneously;
afterwards they are forced by the press and by hot water. Dung costs ten
sous the one hundred pounds. Their fire-wood is chene-vert and willow.
The latter is lopped every three years. An ass sells for from one to
three louis; the best mules for thirty louis. The best asses will carry
two hundred pounds; the best horses three hundred pounds; the best mules
six hundred pounds. The temperature of the mineral waters of Aix is 90°
of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, at the spout. A mule eats half as much as
a horse. The allowance to an ass for the day, is a handful of bran mixed
with straw. The price of mutton and beef, about six and a half sous the
pound. The beef comes from Auvergne, and is poor and bad. The mutton
is small, but of excellent flavor. The wages of a laboring man are one
hundred and fifty livres the year, a woman’s sixty to sixty-six livres,
and fed. Their bread is half wheat, half rye, made once in three or four
weeks, to prevent too great a consumption. In the morning they eat bread
with an anchovy, or an onion. Their dinner in the middle of the day
is bread, soup, and vegetables. Their supper the same. With their
vegetables, they have always oil and vinegar. The oil costs about eight
sous the pound. They drink what is called _piquette_. This is made after
the grapes are pressed, by pouring hot water on the pumice. On Sunday
they have meat and wine. Their wood for building comes mostly from the
Alps, down the Durance and Rhone. A stick of pine, fifty feet long,
girting six feet and three inches at one end, and three feet three
inches at the other, costs, delivered here, from fifty-four to sixty
livres. Sixty pounds of wheat cost seven livres. One of their little
asses will travel with his burthen about five or six leagues a day, and
day by day; a mule from six to eight leagues.*
* It is twenty American miles from Aix to Marseilles, and
they call it five leagues. Their league, then, is of four
American miles.
March 29. Marseilles. The country is hilly, intersected by chains of
hills and mountains of massive rock. The soil is reddish, stony, and
indifferent where best. Wherever there is any soil, it is covered
with olives. Among these are corn, vines, some lucerne, mulberry, some
almonds, and willow. Neither enclosures, nor forest. A very few sheep.
On the road I saw one of those little whirlwinds which we have in
Virginia, also some gullied hill-sides. The people are in separate
establishments. Ten morning observations of the thermometer, from the
20th to the 31st of March inclusive, made at Nismes, St. Remy, Aix,
and Marseilles, give me an average of 52 1/2°, and 46° and 61°, for the
greatest and least morning heats. Nine afternoon observations, yield an
average of 62 2/3°, and 57° and 66°, the greatest and least. The longest
day here, from sunrise to sunset, is fifteen hours and fourteen minutes;
the shortest is eight hours and forty-six minutes; the latitude being
---------.