saintfoin, and lucerne. A great proportion of the hills are waste. There
are some enclosures of stone, and some sheep. The first four years of
madder are unproductive; the fifth and sixth yield the whole value of
the land. Then it must be renewed. The _sparsette_ is the common or true
saintfoin. It lasts about five years: in the best land it is cut twice,
in May and September, and yields three thousand pounds of dry hay to the
setterie, the first cutting, and five hundred pounds, the second. The
_setterie_ is of seventy-five _dextres en tout sens_, supposed about
two arpents. Lucerne is the best of all forage; it is sowed herein the
broad-cast, and lasts about twelve or fourteen years. It is cut four
times a year, and yields six thousand pounds of dry hay, at the four
cuttings, to the setterie. The territory in which the _vin muscat de
Frontignan_ is made, is about a league of three thousand _toises_ long,
and one fourth of a league broad. The soil is reddish and stony, often
as much stone as soil. On the left, it is a plain, on the right hills.
There are made about one thousand _pièces_ (of two hundred and fifty
bottles each) annually, of which six hundred are of the first quality,
made on the _coteaux_. Of these, Madame Soubeinan makes two hundred,
Monsieur Reboulle ninety, Monsieur Lambert, _medecin de la faculte
de Montpelier_, sixty, Monsieur Thomas, _notaire_, fifty, Monsieur
Argilliers fifty, Monsieur Audibert forty; equal to four hundred and
ninety; and there are some small proprietors who make small quantities.
The first quality is sold, _brut_, for one hundred and twenty livres the
_pièce_; but it is then thick, and must have a winter and the
_fouet_, to render it potable and brilliant. The _fouet_ is like a
chocolate-mill, the handle of iron, the brush of stiff hair. In bottles,
this wine costs twenty-four sous, the bottle, &c. included. It is
potable the April after it is made, is best that year, and after ten
years begins to have a pitchy taste, resembling it to Malaga. It is not
permitted to ferment more than half a day, because it would not be so
liquorish. The best color, and its natural one, is the amber. By force
of whipping, it is made white, but loses flavor. There are but two or
three _pièces_ a year of red Muscat made; there being but one vineyard
of the red grape, which belongs to a baker called Pascal. This sells
in bottles at thirty sous, the bottle included. Rondelle, _négociant
en vin, Porte St. Bernard, fauxbourg St. Germain, Paris_, buys three
hundred pieces of the first quality every year. The _coteaux_ yield
about half a piece to the _setterie_, the plains a whole piece. The
inferior quality is not at all esteemed. It is bought by the merchants
of Cette, as is also the wine of Beziers, and sold by them for
Frontignan of the first quality. They sell thirty thousand _pièces_ a
year under that name. The town of Frontignan marks its casks with a hot
iron: an individual of that place, having two casks emptied, was offered
forty livres for the empty cask by a merchant of Cette. The town of
Frontignan contains about two thousand inhabitants; it is almost on
the level of the ocean. Transportation to Paris is fifteen livres the
quintal, and takes fifteen days. The price of packages is about eight
livres eight sous the one hundred bottles. A _setterie_ of good vineyard
sells for from three hundred and fifty to five hundred livres, and rents
for fifty livres. A laboring man hires at one hundred and fifty livres
the year, and is fed and lodged; a woman at half as much. Wheat sells
at ten livres the _settier_, which weighs one hundred pounds, _poids de
table_. They make some Indian corn here, which is eaten by the poor. The
olives do not extend northward of this into the country above twelve
or fifteen leagues. In general, the olive country in Languedoc is about
fifteen leagues broad. More of the waste lands between Frontignan and
Mirval are capable of culture; but it is a marshy country, very subject
to fever and ague, and generally unhealthy. Thence arises, as is said, a
want of hands.
_Cette_. There are in this town about ten thousand inhabitants.
Its principal commerce is wine; it furnishes great quantities of
grape-pumice for making _verdigrise_. They have a very growing commerce;
but it is kept under by the privileges of Marseilles.
May 13. _Agde_. On the right of the Etang de Thau are plains of some
width, then hills, in olives, vines, mulberry, corn, and pasture. On the
left a narrow sand-bar, separating the Etang from the sea, along which
it is proposed to make a road from Cette to Agde. In this case, the post
would lead from Montpelier by Cette and Agde to Beziers, being leveller,
and an hour or an hour and a half nearer. Agde contains six or eight
thousand inhabitants.
May 14. _Beziers_. Rich plains in corn, saintfoin, and pasture; hills
at a little distance to the right in olives; the soil both of hill and
plain is red going from Agde to Beziers. But at Beziers the country
becomes hilly, and is in olives, corn, saintfoin, pasture, some vines,
and mulberries.
May 15. _Beziers. Argilies. Le Saumal_. From Argilies to Saumal are
considerable plantations of vines. Those on the red hills, to the right,
are said to produce good wine. No wood, no enclosures. There are sheep
and good cattle. The Pyrenees are covered with snow. I am told they are
so in certain parts all the year. The canal of Languedoc, along which
I now travel, is six _toises_ wide at bottom, and ten _toises_ at
the surface of the water, which is one _toise_ deep. The barks which
navigate it are seventy and eighty feet long, and seventeen or eighteen
feet wide. They are drawn by one horse, and worked by two hands, one of
which is generally a woman. The locks are mostly kept by women, but the
necessary operations are much too laborious for them. The encroachments
by the men, on the offices proper for the women, is a great derangement
in the order of things. Men are shoemakers, tailors, upholsterers,
staymakers, mantua-makers, cooks, housekeepers, house-cleaners,
bed-makers, they _coiffe_ the ladies, and bring them to bed: the women,
therefore, to live, are obliged to undertake the offices which they
abandon. They become porters, carters, reapers, sailors, lock-keepers,
smiters on the anvil, cultivators of the earth, &c. Can we wonder, if
such of them as have a little beauty, prefer easier courses to get their
livelihood, as long as that beauty lasts? Ladies who employ men in the
offices which should be reserved for their sex, are they not bawds in
effect? For every man whom they thus emply, some girl, whose place he
has thus taken, is driven to whoredom. The passage of the eight locks
at Beziers, that is, from the opening of the first to the last gate
took one hour and thirty-three minutes. The bark in which I go is about
thirty-five feet long, drawn by one horse, and goes from two to three
geographical miles an hour. The canal yields abundance of carp and eel.
I see also small fish, resembling our perch and chub. Some plants
of white clover, and some of yellow, on the banks of the canal near
Capestan; santolina also, and a great deal of yellow iris. Met a raft
of about three hundred and fifty beams, forty feet long, and twelve
or thirteen inches in diameter, formed into fourteen rafts, tacked
together. The extensive and numerous fields of saintfoin, in general
bloom, are beautiful.
May 16. _Le Saumal. Marseillette_. May 17. _Marseilleite. Carcassonne_.
From Saumal to Carcassonne we have always the river Aube close on our
left. This river runs in the valley between the Cevennes and Pyrenees,
serving as the common receptacle for both their waters. It is from
fifty to one hundred and fifty yards wide, always rapid, rocky, and
insusceptible of navigation. The canal passes in the side of hills made
by that river, overlooks the river itself, and its plains, and has
its prospect ultimately terminated on one side by mountains of rock,
overtopped by the Pyrenees, on the other by small mountains, sometimes
of rock, sometimes of soil, overtopped by the Cevennes. Marseillette
is on a ridge, which separates the river Aube from the Etang de
Marseillette. The canal, in its approach to this village, passes the
ridge, and rides along the front, overlooking the Etang, and the plains
on its border; and having passed the village, re-crosses the ridge, and
resumes its general ground in front of the Aube. The land is in corn,
saintfoin, pasture, vines, mulberries, willows, and olives.
May 18. _Carcassonne. Castelnaudari_. Opposite to Carcassonne the canal
receives the river Fresquel, about thirty yards wide, which is its
substantial supply of water from hence to Beziers. From Beziers to Agde
the river Orb furnishes it, and the Eraut, from Agde to the Etang de
Thau. By means of the _écluse ronde_ at Agde, the waters of the Eraut
can be thrown towards Beziers, to aid those of the Orb, as far as the
_écluse de Porcaraigne_, nine geometrical miles. Where the Fresquel
enters the canal, there is, on the opposite side, a waste, to let off
the superfluous waters. The horse-way is continued over this waste, by a
bridge of stone of eighteen arches. I observe them fishing in the canal,
with a skimming net of about fifteen feet diameter, with which they tell
me they catch carp. Flax in blossom. Neither strawberries nor peas yet
at Carcassonne. The Windsor-bean just come to table. From the _écluse de
la Lande_ we see the last olive trees near a _metairée_, or farm-house-,
called _La Lande_. On a review of what I have seen and heard of this
tree, the following seem to be its northern limits. Beginning on the
Atlantic, at the Pyrenees, and along them to the meridian of La Lande,
or of Carcassonne; up that meridian to the Cevennes, as they begin just
there to raise themselves high enough to afford it shelter. Along the
Cevennes, to the parallel of forty-five degrees of latitude, and along
that parallel (crossing the Rhone near the mouth of the Isere) to the
Alps; thence along the Alps and Apennines, to what parallel of
latitude I know not. Yet here the tracing of the line becomes the most
interesting. For from the Atlantic, so far we see this production the
effect of shelter and latitude combined. But where does it venture to
launch forth unprotected by shelter, and by the mere force of latitude
alone? Where, for instance, does its northern limit cross the Adriatic?
I learn, that the olive tree resists cold to eight degrees of Reaumur
below the freezing-point, which corresponds to fourteen above zero of
Fahrenheit: and that the orange resists to four degrees below freezing
of Reaumur, which is twenty-three degrees above zero of Fahrenheit.
May 19. _Castelnaudari. St. Feriol. Escamaze. Lampy_. Some sheep and
cattle; no enclosures. St. Feriol, Escamaze, and Lampy are in the
montagnes noires. The country almost entirely waste. Some of it in
shrubbery. The _voute d’Escamaze_ is of one hundred and thirty-five
yards. Round about Castelnaudari the country is hilly, as it has been
constantly from Beziers; it is very rich. Where it is plain, or nearly
plain, the soil is black: in general, however, it is hilly and reddish,
and in corn. They cultivate a great deal of Indian corn here, which they
call millet; it is planted, but not yet up.
May 20. _Castelnaudari. Naurouze. Villefranche. Baziege_. At Naurouze is
the highest ground which the canal had to pass between the two seas. It
became necessary, then, to find water still higher to bring it here. The
river Fresquel heading by its two principal branches in the _montagnes
noires_, a considerable distance off to the eastward, the springs of the
most western one were brought together, and conducted to Naurouze, where
its waters are divided, part furnishing the canal towards the ocean,
the rest towards the Mediterranean, as far as the _écluse de Fresquel_,
where, as has been before noted, the Lampy branch and the Alzau, under
the name of the Fresquel, enter.
May 20. They have found that a lock of six _pieds_ is best; however,
eight _pieds_ is well enough. Beyond this, it is bad. Monsieur Pin tells
me of a lock of thirty _pieds_ made in Sweden, of which it is impossible
to open the gates. They therefore divided it into four locks. The small
gates of the locks of this canal have six square _pieds_ of surface.
They tried the machinery of the jack for opening them. They were more
easily opened, but very subject to be deranged, however strongly
made. They returned, therefore, to the original wooden screw, which is
excessively slow and laborious. I calculate that five minutes are lost
at every basin by this screw, which, on the whole number of basins, is
one eighth of the time necessary to navigate the canal: and of course,
if a method of lifting the gate at one stroke could be found, it would
reduce the passage from eight to seven days, and the freight equally.
I suggested to Monsieur Pin and others a quadrantal gate, turning on a
pivot, and lifted by a lever like a pump-handle, aided by a windlass and
cord, if necessary. He will try it, and inform me of the success. The
price of transportation from Cette to Bordeaux, through the canal and
Garonne is ------ the quintal: round by the straits of Gibraltar is
------. Two hundred and forty barks, the largest of twenty-two hundred
quintals (or say, in general, of one hundred tons), suffice to perform
the business of this canal, which is stationary, having neither
increased nor diminished for many years. When pressed, they can pass and
repass between Toulouse and Beziers in fourteen days; but sixteen is the
common period. The canal is navigated ten and a half months of the year:
the other month and a half being necessary to lay it dry, cleanse it,
and repair the works. This is done in July and August, when there would
perhaps be a want of water.
May 21. _Baziège. Toulouse_. The country continues hilly, but very rich.
It is in mulberries, willows, some vines, corn, maize, pasture, beans,
flax. A great number of chateaux and good houses in the neighborhood
of the canal. The people partly in farm-houses, partly in villages.
I suspect that the farm-houses are occupied by the farmers, while the
laborers (who are mostly by the day) reside in the villages. Neither
strawberries nor pease yet at Baziege or Toulouse. Near the latter are
some fields of yellow clover.
At Toulouse the canal ends. It has four communications with the
Mediterranean. 1. Through the ponds of Thau, Frontignan, Palavas,
Maguelone, and Manjo, the _canal de la Radela Aigues-mortes, le canal
des Salines de Pecair,_ and the arm of the Rhone called _Bras de Fer_,
which ends at Fourgues, opposite to Arles, and thence down the Rhone. 2.
At Cette, by a canal of a few hundred _toises_, leading out of the Etang
de Thau into the sea. The vessels pass the Etang, though a length of
nine thousand _toises_, with sails. 3. At Agde, by the river Eraut,
twenty-five hundred _toises_. It has but five or six _pieds_ of water
at its mouth. It is joined to the canal at the upper part of this
communication, by a branch of a canal two hundred and seventy _toises_
long. 4. At Narbonne, by a canal they are now opening, which leads from
the great canal near the aqueduct of the river Cesse, twenty-six hundred
_toises_, into the Aude. This new canal will have five lock-basins,
of about twelve _pieds_ fall each. Then you are to cross the Aude very
obliquely, and descend a branch of it six thousand _toises_, through
four lock-basins to Narbonne, and from Narbonne down the same branch,
twelve hundred _toises_ into the _Etang de Sigen_, across that Etang
four thousand _toises_, issuing at an inlet, called _Grau de la
Nouvelle_, into the Gulf of Lyons. But only vessels of thirty or forty
tons can enter this inlet. Of these four communications, that of Cette
only leads to a deep sea-port, because the exit is there by a canal, and
not a river. Those by the Rhone, Eraut, and Aude, are blocked up by bars
at the mouths of those rivers. It is remarkable, that all the rivers
running into the Mediterranean are obstructed at their entrance by bars
and shallows, which often change their position. This is the case with
the Nile, Tiber, the Po, the Lez, le Lyoron, the Orbe, the Gly, the
Tech, the Tet, he. Indeed, the formation of these bars seems not
confined to the mouths of the rivers, though it takes place at them more
certainly. Along almost the whole of the coast, from Marseilles towards
the Pyrenees, banks of sand are thrown up parallel with the coast, which
have insulated portions of the sea, that is, formed them into etangs,
ponds, or sounds, through which here and there narrow and shallow inlets
only are preserved by the currents of the rivers. These sounds fill up
in time, with the mud and sand deposited in them by the rivers. Thus the
Etang de Vendres, navigated formerly by vessels of sixty tons, is
now nearly filled up by the mud and sand of the Aude. The Vistre and
Vidourle, which formerly emptied themselves into the Gulf of Lyons, are
now received by the _Etangs de Manjo_ and Aiguesmortes, that is to
say, the part of the Gulf of Lyons, which formerly received, and still
receives those rivers, is now cut off from the sea by a bar of sand,
which has been thrown up in it, and has formed it into sounds. Other
proofs that the land gains there on the sea, are, that the towns of
St. Giles and Notre Dame d’Asposts, formerly seaports, are no far from
the sea, and that Aiguesmortes, where are still to be seen the iron
rings to which vessels were formerly moored, and where St. Louis
embarked for Palestine, has now in its vicinities only ponds, which
cannot be navigated, and communicates with the sea by an inlet, called
_Grau du Roy_, through which only fishing-barks can pass. It is pretty
well established, that all the Delta of Egypt has been formed by
the depositions of the Nile, and the alluvions of the sea, and it is
probable that that operation is still going on. Has this peculiarity
of the Mediterranean any connection with the scantiness of its tides,
which, even at the equinoxes, are of two or three feet only? The
communication from the western end of the canal to the ocean, is by
the river Garonne. This is navigated by flat boats of eight hundred
quintals, when the water is well; but when it is scanty, these boats
carry only two hundred quintals, till they get to the mouth of the Tarn.
It has been proposed to open a canal that far from Toulouse, along the
right side of the river.
May 22. _Toulouse_. 23. _Agen_. 24. _Castres. Bordeaux_. The Garonne,
and rivers emptying into it, make extensive and rich plains, which are
in mulberries, willows, corn, maize, pasture, beans, and flax. The hills
are in corn, maize, beans, and a considerable proportion of vines. There
seems to be as much maize as corn in this country. Of the latter, there
is more rye than wheat. The maize is now up, and about three inches
high. It is sowed in rows two feet or two and a half feet apart, and
is pretty thick in the row. Doubtless they mean to thin it. There is
a great deal of a forage they call _farouche_. It is a species of red
trefoil, with few leaves, a very coarse stalk, and a cylindrical blossom
of two inches in length, and three quarters of an inch in diameter,
consisting of floscules, exactly as does that of the red clover. It
seems to be a coarse food, but very plentiful. They say it is for their
oxen. These are very fine, large, and cream-colored. The services of the
farm and of transportation are performed chiefly by them. There are a
few horses and asses, but no mules. Even in the city of Bordeaux we see
scarcely any beasts of draught but oxen. When we cross the Garonne
at Langon, we find the plains entirely of sand and gravel, and they
continue so to Bordeaux. Where they are capable of any thing, they
are in vines, which are in rows, four, five, or six feet apart, and
sometimes more. Near Langon is Sauterne, where the best white wines of
Bordeaux are made. The waste lands are in fern, furze, shrubbery,
and dwarf trees. The farmers live on their farms. At Agen, Castres,
Bordeaux, strawberries and pease are now brought to table; so that the
country on the canal of Languedoc seems to have later seasons than
that east and west of it. What can be the cause? To the eastward, the
protection of the Cevennes makes the warm season advance sooner. Does
the neighborhood of the Mediterranean co-operate? And does that of the
ocean mollify and advance the season to the westward? There are ortolans
at Agen, but none at Bordeaux. The buildings on the canal and the
Garonne are mostly of brick, the size of the bricks the same with that
of the ancient Roman brick, as seen in the remains of their buildings in
this country. In those of a circus at Bordeaux, considerable portions
of which are standing, I measured the bricks, and found them nineteen
or twenty inches long, eleven or twelve inches wide, and from one and a
half to two inches thick; their texture as fine, compact, and solid as
that of porcelain. The bricks now made, though of the same dimensions,
are not so fine. They are burnt in a kind of furnace, and make excellent
work. The elm tree shows itself at Bordeaux peculiarly proper for
being spread flat for arbors. Many are done in this way on the Quay des
Charterons. Strawberries, pease, and cherries at Bordeaux.
May 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Bordeaux. The cantons in which the most
celebrated wines of Bordeaux are made, are Medoc down the river, Grave
adjoining the city, and the parishes next above; all on the same side of
the river. In the first, is made red wine principally, in the two last,
white. In Medoc they plant the vines in cross-rows of three and a half
_pieds_. They keep them so low, that poles extended along the rows one
way, horizontally, about fifteen or eighteen inches above the ground,
serve to tie the vines to, and leave the cross row open to the plough.
In Grave they set the plants in quincunx, i.e. in equilateral triangles
of three and a half pieds every side; and they stick a pole of six or
eight feet high to every vine, separately. The vine-stock is sometimes
three or four feet high. They find these two methods equal in culture,
duration, quantity, and quality. The former, however, admits the
alternative of tending by hand or with the plough. The grafting of the
vine, though a critical operation, is practised with success. When the
graft has taken, they bend it into the earth, and let it take root above
the scar. They begin to yield an indifferent wine at three years old,
but not a good one till twenty-five years, nor after eighty, when they
begin to yield less, and worse, and must be renewed. They give three or
four workings in the year, each worth seventy or seventy-five livres the
journal, which is of eight hundred and forty square ioises, and contains
about three thousand plants. They dung a little in Medoc and Grave,
because of the poverty of the soil; but very little; as more would
affect the wine. The _journal_ yields, _communions annis_, about three
_pièces_ (of two hundred and forty, or two hundred and fifty bottles
each). The vineyards of first quality are all worked by their
proprietors. Those of the second, rent for three hundred livres the
journal: those of third, at two hundred livres. They employ a kind of
overseer at four or five hundred livres the year, finding him lodging
and drink: but he feeds himself. He superintends and directs, though
he is expected to work but little. If the proprietor has a garden, the
overseer tends that. They never hire laborers by the year. The day wages
for a man are thirty sous, a woman’s fifteen sous, feeding themselves.
The women make the bundles of sarment, weed, pull off the snails, tie
the vines, and gather the grapes. During the vintage they are paid high,
and fed well.
Of Red wines, there are four vineyards of the first quality; viz. 1.
_Chateau Margau_, belonging to the Marquis d’Agincourt, who makes about
one hundred and fifty tons, of one thousand bottles each. He has
engaged to Jernon, a merchant. 2. _La Tour de Segur, en Saint Lambert_,
belonging to Monsieur Miresmenil, who makes one hundred and twenty-five
tons. 3. _Hautbrion_, belonging two-thirds to M. le Comte de Femelle,
who has engaged to Barton, a merchant: the other third to the Comte de
Toulouse, at Toulouse. The whole is seventy-five tons. 4. _Chateau de
la Fite_, belonging to the President Pichard, at Bordeaux, who makes one
hundred and seventy-five tons. The wines of the three first, are not in
perfection till four years old: those of _de la Fite_, being somewhat
lighter, are good at three years; that is, the crop of 1786 is good in
the spring of 1789. These growths, of the year 1783, sell now at two
thousand livres the ton; those of 1784, on account of the superior
quality of that vintage, sell at twenty-four hundred livres; those of
1785, at eighteen hundred livres; those of 1786, at eighteen hundred
livres, though they had sold at first for only fifteen hundred livres.
Red wines of the second quality, are Rozan, Dabbadie or Lionville, la
Rose, Qui-rouen, Durfort; in all eight hundred tons, which sell at
one thousand livres, new. The third class, are Galons, Mouton, Gassie,
Arboete, Pontette, de Ferme, Candale; in all two thousand tons, at eight
or nine hundred livres. After these, they are reckoned common wines, and
sell from five hundred livres, down to one hundred and twenty livres,
the ton. All red wines decline after a certain age, losing color,
flavor, and body. Those of Bordeaux begin to decline at about seven
years old.