poles, laid horizontally, but very high from the ground. At the further
extremity of them are the same prizes, and which are gained upon the
same condition--the men to walk over, the women to scramble over them in
any manner which they might deem best. To break the violence of the
fall, the ground immediately under the poles was thickly laid with
straw. Several women, and innumerable girls, made an attempt to gain the
prize at these _Mats de Beaupre_, and in the course of their efforts had
some tumbles, which much delighted the mob. Indeed, this kind of sport
seemed peculiarly intended for the females: the men seemed to prefer the
_Cocagnes_.
The chief enjoyment of the multitude, however, seemed to be dancing.
Several scaffolds, with benches rising one above another, were erected
in every part of the town: these were the orchestras, which, as far as I
saw, were supported by the voluntary contributions of the companies
which danced to their music. A subscription was always made after every
dance, and each dancer subscribed a sous. The ladies, I believe, were
excused by the payment of their partners. The dancing was excellent, and
the music by no means contemptible.
The shows were much of the same kind as those in Bartholomew fair, in
London, and which travel from town to town during the summer in America.
The mountebanks and merry-andrews appeared more dexterous and more
humorous. One of the former seeing me, entreated the crowd to make way
for me; and when I turned my back, "Nay, my good friend," said he, "do
not mistake me. I have no intention of asking you for the money which
you owe to me for your last cure; you are very welcome to it. I delight
in doing good. I am paid sufficiently by your recovery. If you choose,
however, to remember, my young man"--The merry-andrew was here at my
side, and I deemed it most prudent to drop a few sous into his cap, and
effect my escape. The crowd understood the jest, and laughed heartily.
One of them, however, of more decent appearance, made me a very pleasing
apology, repeating at the same time a French proverb--that a pope and a
mountebank were above all law.
Amongst the commodities exhibited for sale, I was agreeably surprised to
find two or more booths well supplied with English and French books;
and my surprise was still greater, to find that the former had many
purchasers. I took up several of them, and found them to be English
Gazetteers, Tours in England, Wales, Scotland; Travels in America,
Dictionaries, and Grammars. From some cause or other, the English seem
in particular favour in and about Amiens, and Lord Cornwallis is still
remembered with respect and affection.
There, were other booths which excited less pleasing reflections; these
were the temporary gaming tables, the admission to which was from six to
twelve sous. I had the curiosity to enter one of them: it was already
full. One party was at eager play, and others were waiting to succeed
them. I could make nothing of the game, only that it was one of chance,
and that the winnings and losings were determined in every three casts.
I saw a decent young man take off and stake his neckcloth: fortune
favoured him, and he had the uncommon fortitude to retire, and play no
more. There was another booth of rather a singular kind--a temporary
pawnbroker's, and who appeared to have a good brisk trade.
My attention, however, was more peculiarly attracted by a marquee, open
on all sides, and with an elevated floor: a chair, covered with green
velvet, was here placed, and occupied by a man of much apparent gravity.
I found, upon inquiry, that this was the president, judge, or
magistrate of the fair; that he was elected by votes of the
booth-holders, and determined all disputes on the spot; that his
authority was supported by the police, and his sentence enforced by the
municipality. He was a portly man, wore a three-cocked hat, and an old
scarlet cloak, which had served the same purpose time out of mind.
I returned to my hotel to dinner; and being informed that there was a
_table d'hote_, and that it would be very numerously attended, I
preferred it to dining in my own apartment, and at the appointed hour
took my seat. The company was indeed numerous--men, women, girls, and
children; officers of the army, exhibitors of wild beasts, actors and
actresses of the booth-theatres. A separate table was set for the
officers of the army. I had here a specimen of the manners of the French
revolutionary officers. A party of them, to the number of fifteen or
twenty, had already placed themselves at table, when the commandant, or
at least a superior officer, entered the room. They all immediately got
up to make room for him, and handed him a chair in a manner the most
servile and fawning. "I hope I disturb no one," said he, at the same
time throwing himself into the chair, but not offering to move his hat.
He continued during the whole of the dinner the same disgusting
superiority, and the subordinate officers several times called out
silence to the adjoining table, that they might better hear the vapid
remarks of their commander. The waiters, and even the whole _table
d'hote_ seemed in great awe of these military gentlemen; and one fellow
excused himself for leaving a plate before me by hastily alleging that
the commander was looking around him for something. I was still more
disgusted by one of the officers rising, and proposing this important
gentleman's health to both tables; and my surprise was greater by
recognizing, in the tone of this proposal, the barbarous twang of an
Irishman. Some of the French regiments are half filled with these Irish
renegades. I cannot speak of them with any patience, as I cannot
conceive any voluntary degradation more contemptible, than that of
passing from any thing British or American into any thing French or
Italian. I have a respect for the Irish in the German service; they are
still members of a people like themselves. I say not this in contempt of
the French themselves, but of the English or Irish become French.
In the evening I went to one of the theatres, accompanied by an English
physician, with whom I dined at the _table d'hote_. This gentleman came
into France after the peace of Amiens, and was of course included in the
number detained by the French Emperor. Having some friends in the
Institute, they had drawn up a memorial in his favour, in which they
represented him, and very justly, as a man of science, who had come into
France to compare the English and French system of medicine, and whose
researches had already excited much interest and inquiry amongst the
French physicians. This memorial being delivered into the hands of the
Emperor himself, was subscribed by him in the following words: "Let him
remain in France during the war, on his parole that he will not leave
the French territories, and will have no correspondence with England."
The performance at the theatre was too contemptible for mention, and in
the pantomime, or rather spectacle, became latterly so indelicate, that
I found it necessary to withdraw. I should hope that the performances
are not always of the same character: perhaps something must be allowed
for the occasion. The French, however, have no idea of humour as
separated from indecencies. In this respect they might take a very
useful lesson from the English. The English excel in pantomime as much
as the French in comedy.
Dr. M---- returned to supper with me, and gave me some useful
information. Every trace of the Revolution is rapidly vanishing at
Amiens. Religion has resumed her influence: the cathedral is very well
attended, but auricular confession is not usual. The clergy of Amiens,
however, are very poor, having lost all their immense possessions, and
having nothing but the national stipend. The cathedral had been repaired
by public subscription. The poor are sent to the armies. There were no
imposts but those paid to the government.
Amiens is still a very cheap town for permanent residence, though the
war has very seriously affected it. A good house may be rented for
thirty pounds per annum, the taxes upon the mere house being about a
Louis. Mutton seldom exceeds threepence English money per pound, and
beef is usually somewhat cheaper. Poultry of all kinds is in great
plenty, and cheap: fowls, ducks, &c. about two shillings per couple. A
horse at livery, half a Louis per week; two horses, all expences
included, a Louis and two livres. Board and lodging in a genteel house,
five-and-twenty Louis annually. Dr. M---- agreed with me, that for three
hundred a year, a family might keep their carriage and live in comfort,
in Amiens and its neighbourhood. I must not forget another observation;
the towns in France are cheaper than the villages. The consumption of
meat in the latter is not sufficient to induce the butchers to kill
often; the market, therefore, is very ill supplied, and consequently the
prices are dear. A few miles from a principal town, you cannot have a
leg of mutton without paying for the whole sheep.
A stranger may live at an inn at Amiens for about five shillings,
English money, a day. The wine is good, and very cheap; and a daily
ordinary, or _table d'hote_, is kept at the _Hotel d'Angleterre_.
Breakfast is charged one livre, dinner three, and supper one: half a
livre for coffee, and two livres for lodging; but if you remain a week,
ten livres for the whole time. The hotels, of which there are two, are
as good as those of Paris, and lodgings are far more reasonable. A
_restaurateur_ has very lately set up in a very grand style, but the
population of the town will scarcely support him. The company at the
_table d'hote_ usually consists of officers, of whom there is always a
multitude in the neighbourhood of Amiens. Some of them, as I was
informed, are very pleasant agreeable men; whilst others are ruffians,
and have the manners of jacobins.
CHAP. VIII.
_French and English Roads compared--Gaiety of French
Labourers--Breteuil--Apple-trees in the midst of Corn-fields--Beautiful
Scenery--Cheap Price of Land in France--Clermont--Bad Management
of the French Farmers--Chantilly--Arrival at Paris._
I left Amiens early on the following morning, intending to reach
Clermont in good time.
The roads now became very indifferent, but the scenery was much
improved. I could not but compare the prospect of a French road with one
of the great roads of England. It is impossible to travel a mile on an
English road without meeting or overtaking every species of vehicle. The
imagination of a traveller, if as susceptible as a traveller's
imagination should be, has thus a constant food for its exercise; it
accompanies these several groups to their home or destination, and calls
before its view the busy market, the quiet village, the blazing hearth,
the returning husband, and the welcoming wife. No man is fit for a
traveller who cannot while away his time in such creations of his
fancy. I pity the traveller from my heart, who in a barren or uniform
road, has no other occupation but to count the mile-stones, and find
every mile as long as the three preceding. Let such men become drivers
to stage-coaches, but let them not degrade the name of travellers by
assuming it to themselves.
On a French road, there is more necessity than objects for this exercise
of the imagination. A French road is like a garden in the old French
style. It is seldom either more or less than a straight line ruled from
one end of the kingdom to the other. There are no angles, no curvatures,
no hedges; one league is the exact counterpart of another; instead of
hedges, are railings, and which are generally in a condition to give the
country not only a naked, but even a slovenly, ruinous appearance.
Imagine a road made over an heath, and each side of it fenced off by a
railing of old hurdles, and you will have no imperfect idea of a French
great road. Within a mile, indeed, of the neighbourhood of a principal
town, the prospect usually varies and improves. The road is then planted
on each side, and becomes a beautiful avenue through lofty and shady
trees. This description, however, will only apply to the great roads.
Some of the cross and country roads, as I shall hereafter have occasion
to mention, not only equal, but greatly exceed, even the English roads,
in natural beauty and scenery.
In the course of the road between Amiens and Clermont, I had again too
frequent opportunity to remark the slovenly management of the French
farmers, as compared with those of England, and even with those of
America. In America, the farmers are not without a very sufficient
excuse. The scarcity of hands, the impossibility of procuring labourers
at any price, compel an American farmer to get in his harvest as he can,
to collect the crop of one field hastily, and then fly to another. In
France there is no such excuse, and therefore there should be no such
slovenly waste. Yet in some of the hay-fields which I passed, at least
one-fifth _of_ the crop was lying scattered on the roads and in the
fields. The excuse was, that the cattle would eat it, and that they
might as well have it one way as another. It would be folly to say any
thing as to such an argument; yet in these very fields the labour was so
plentiful and minute, that the greater part of the crop was carried from
the fields on the shoulders of the labourers, men, women, and boys. It
is difficult to reconcile such inconsistencies.
In such of the fields as I saw carts, the most severe labour seemed to
be allotted to the share of the women. They were the pitchers, and
performed this labour with a very heavy, and as it appeared to me, a
very awkward fork. Whilst the women were performing this task, two or
three fellows, raw-boned, and nearly six feet high, were either very
leisurely raking, or perhaps laying at their full length under the
new-made stacks. In other fields I saw more pleasing groups. At the
sound of a horn like the English harvest horn, the pitchers, the
loaders, and every labourer on the spot, left their work, and collected
around some tree or hay-cock, to receive their noon refreshment. The
indispensable fiddle was never wanting. Even the horses, loosened from
the carts, and suffered to feed at liberty, seemed to partake in the
general merriment, and looked with erect ears at the fiddler and his
dancing group. When, the hour allotted to this relaxation expired, the
labourers were again called to the several duties by the summons of the
same horn, which was now sounded from the top of the loaded cart, as it
had before been sounded under the tree or hay-cock. I had forgotten to
mention, that the tree or hay-cock, the appointed place of refreshment,
was distinguished by pennants of different coloured ribbons attached to
a stick as a flag-staff, and which waving in the wind, under a beautiful
midsummer sky, had an effect peculiarly pleasing. As I saw the same
spectacle in several fields, I believe it to be national.
Breteuil, which I reached in time for a late breakfast, is a very paltry
town; the houses are all built in the ancient style, and bear an
unfavourable resemblance to English farm-houses; their gable-ends are
turned to the streets, and the chimneys are nearly as large as the
roofs. There was no appearance of business, not even of a brisk retail,
or of a lively thoroughfare. A crowd collected around us as I entered
the inn, as if a decent stranger, travelling on horseback, were a
miracle in that part of the country.
Whatever, however, was wanting in the town, was more than made up by the
surrounding country, which becomes very beautiful in the immediate
environs of Breteuil. For the five or six miles beyond the town, towards
Clermont, the scenery is enchanting. The vines, which here commence,
were in bloom, the road fringed with orchards, and even the corn-fields
hedged round with apple-trees. In the middle of every field was an elm
or a chesnut, which by the luxuriance of its foliage seemed planted in
other ages. On each side of the road, moreover, at the distance of a
mile or a league, were the towers of village churches rising from amidst
similar groves, whilst a chateau perhaps crowned the hill, and completed
the landscape. Bye-paths, and narrow roads, leading to one or other of
these villages, intersected the corn-fields in every direction; and as
the corn was full-grown and yellow, and the day beautifully serene,
nothing could be more grateful than this prospect. The heart of man
seems peculiarly formed to relish the beauties of Nature, and to feel
the bounties of Providence. What artificial beauty can equal that of a
corn-field? What emotion is so lively, and so fully pervades every
feeling, as that excited by the cornucopia of Nature, and the flowery
plenty of the approaching harvest?
The same scenery continues with little variation to Clermont, the
country improving, and the roads becoming worse. In this interval,
however, I passed several chateaux in ruins, and several farms and
houses, on which were affixed notices that they were to be let or sold.
On inquiring the rent and purchase of one of them, I found it to be so
cheap, that could I have reconciled myself to French manners, and
promised myself any suitable assistance from French labourers, I should
have seriously thought of making a purchase. An estate of eleven hundred
acres, seven hundred of which were in culture, the remainder wood and
heath, was offered for sale for 8000 Louis. The mansion-house was indeed
in ruin beyond the possibility of repair, but the land, under proper
cultivation, would have paid twenty-five per cent. on the
purchase-money. The main point of such purchases, however, is contained
in these words: Under proper cultivation. Nothing is so absurd as the
expectation of a foreign purchaser, and particularly of a gentleman,
that he will be able to transfer the improved system of cultivation of
his own country into a kingdom at least a century behind the former. As
far us his own manual labour goes, as far as he will take the plough,
the harrow, and the broadcast himself, so far may he procure the
execution of his own ideas. But it is in vain to endeavour to infuse
this knowledge or this practice into French labourers; you might as well
put a pen in the hand of a Hottentot, and expect him to write his name.
The ill success of half the foreign purchasers must be imputed to this
oversight. An American or an Englishman passes over a French or German
farm, and sees land of the most productive powers reduced to sterility
by slovenly management. A suggestion immediately arises in his mind--how
much might this land be made to produce under a more intelligent
cultivation? Full of this idea he perhaps inquires the price, and
finding it about one-tenth of what such land would cost in England,
immediately makes his purchase, settles, and begins his operations. Here
his eyes are soon opened. He must send to England for all his
implements; and even then his French labourers neither can or will learn
the use of them. An English ploughman becomes necessary; the English
ploughman accordingly comes, but shortly becomes miserable amongst
French habits and French fellow-labourers.
In this manner have failed innumerable attempts of this kind within my
own knowledge. It is impossible to transplant the whole of the system of
one country into another. The English or the American farmer may
emigrate and settle in France, and bring over his English plough and
English habits, but he will still find a French soil, a French climate,
French markets, and French labourers. The course of his crops will be
disturbed by the necessity of some subservience to the peculiar wants of
the country and the demands of the market. He cannot, for example,
persevere in his turnips, where he can find no cattle to eat them, no
purchasers for his cattle, and where, from the openness of the climate
in winter, the crop must necessarily rot before he can consume it. For
the same reason, his clover cultivation becomes as useless. To say all
in a word, I know not how an English or an American farmer could make a
favourable purchase in France, though the French Government should come
forward with its protection. The habits of the country have become so
accommodated to its agriculture, that they each mutually support the
other, and a more improved system can only be introduced in the
proportion in which these national habits can be fundamentally changed.
But such changes must necessarily be gradual and slow, and must not be
reckoned upon by an individual.
I found myself so indisposed at Clermont, that I retired very early to
my bed. My complaint was a giddiness in the head, brought on by riding
in the sun. Every country has its peculiar medicine as well as its
religion, and in every country there are certain family receipts,
certain homely prescriptions, which, from their experienced efficacy,
merit more attention than a member of the faculty would be inclined to
give them. My host at Clermont accordingly became my physician, and by
his advice I bathed my feet in warm water, and getting into bed between
the blankets, after drinking about a quart of cold spring-water, I can
only say that the remedy had its full effect. After a violent
perspiration in the night I fell into a sound sleep, and awoke in the
morning in such complete health and spirits, as to ride to Chantilly to
breakfast.
Throughout the morning's journey, the scenery was very nearly similar to
what I had previously passed, except that it was richer and more varied
with habitations. The peasantry, moreover, were occupied in the same
manner in getting in their hay-harvest, which, from reasons that I
cannot comprehend, seemed more backward as I approached to the
metropolis. This may partly, indeed, be owing to what will appear a very
extraordinary cause--the excellence of the climate. The French farmer
can trust the skies; he sees a cloudless sky in the night, and has no
fear that its serenity will be shortly disturbed. He is a total stranger
to that vicissitude of sunshine, rain, and tempest, which in a moment
confounds all the labours of the English husbandmen. The same sun that
shines to-day will shine to-morrow. In this happy confidence he stacks
his hay in small cocks in the field where it grows, and only carries it
away at his leisure. His manner of carrying is as slovenly as all his
other management. Annette carries an apron-full, Jeannette an
handkerchief-full, and Lubin a barrow-full. Some of it is packed in
sheets and blankets. Some of this hay was very bad in quality, and as
crops, still worse in quantity. Being too much exposed to the sun, it
was little better than so much coarse straw. Being merely thrown
together, without being trodden, when carried into the hay-loft, it
loses whatever fragrance it may have hitherto retained. I do not think
an English horse would eat it.
Chantilly totally disappointed my expectations. The daemon of anarchy has
here raised a superb trophy on a monument of ruins. The principal
building has been demolished for the sake of the materials; the stables,
and that part of the ancient establishment denominated Le petit Chateau,
are all that remain. I was informed by the people of the inn, that the
whole had been purchased in the revolutionary period by a petty
provincial builder, who had no sooner completed his installments, than
he began the demolition of the building, and the cutting down the trees
in the grounds. Buonaparte, fortunately for Chantilly, became Chief
Consul before the whole was destroyed; Chantilly was then re-purchased,
and is now the property of the Government.
The road now began to have some appearance of an approach to the capital
of the kingdom. I could not however but still observe, that there were
but few carriages compared to what I had seen within a similar distance
of London, and even of New York. The several vehicles were mostly
constructed in the same manner as vehicles of the same distinction in
England. The charette, or cart in common use, was the only exception on
the favourable side. This vehicle seemed to me so well adapted to its
purpose, as to merit a particular description.