therefore give my observations in full under the heads of, its climate,
its produce, its agriculture, and the manners of its provincial
inhabitants.
The climate of the departments of the Nievre and the Allier, which
include the provinces of the Nivernois and Bourbonnois, is the most
delightful under Heaven, being at once most healthy, and such as to
animate and inspirit the senses and the imagination: it is an endless
succession of the most lovely skins, without any interruption, except by
those rains which are necessary to nourish and fertilize. The winters
are mild, without fogs, and with sufficient sunshine to render fires
almost unnecessary. The springs answer to the ordinary weather of May in
other kingdoms. The summer and autumn--with the exception of hail and
thunder, which are certainly violent, but not frequent--are not
characterized by those heavy humid heats, which are so pestilential in
some parts of South America: they are light, elastic, and cheering. The
windows of the bed-chambers, as I have before mentioned, are almost all
without glass; or, if they have them, it is for show rather than for
use: the universal custom is, to sleep with them open. It is nothing
uncommon to have the swallows flying into your chamber, and awakening
you by early dawn with their twittering. When these windows open into
gardens, nothing can be more pleasant: the purity of the air, the
splendor of the stars, the singing of nightingales, and the perfume of
flowers, all concur to charm the senses; and I never remember to have
enjoyed sweeter slumbers, and pleasanter hours, than whilst in this part
of France.
In March and April, the ground is covered with flowers; and many which
are solely confined to the gardens and hot-houses in England, may be
seen in the fields and hedge-rows. The colours are perhaps not
altogether so brilliant as in more humid climates, but be they what they
may, they, give the country an appearance of a fairy land. Pease are in
common use on every table in March, and every kind of culinary vegetable
is equally forward. The meadows are covered with violets, and the
gardens with roses: the banks by the side of the road seem one continued
bed of cowslips. In plain words, Spring here indeed seems to hold her
throne, and to reign in all that vernal sweetness and loveliness which
is imputed to her by the poets.
The health of the inhabitants corresponds with the excellence of the
climate. Gouts, rheumatisms, and even colds, are very rare, and fevers
not frequent. The most common complaint is a dysentery, towards the
latter end of the autumn.
The face of the country throughout the two departments of the Nievre and
the Allier, is what has been above described--an uninterrupted
succession of rich landscape, in which every thing is united which
constitutes the picturesque. The country sometimes rises into hills, and
even mountains; none of which are so barren but to have vineyards, or
gardens, to their very summits. In many of them, where the surface is
common property, the peasantry, in order to make the most of its
superficial area, have dug it into terraces, on which each of them has
his vineyard, or garden for herbs, corn, and fruits. The industry of the
French peasantry is not exceeded in any part of the world: wherever they
possess a spot of land, they improve it to its utmost possible capacity.
Under this careful cultivation, there is in reality no such thing in
France as a sterile mountain. If there be no natural soil, they will
carry some thither.
There are numerous woods and forests in these departments. The wood
being interspersed amongst the hills and valleys, contribute much to the
beauty of the scenery: the same circumstance contributes more, perhaps,
to the comfort of the inhabitants. Fuel, so dear in almost every other
part of France, is here cheap to an extraordinary degree. Coal is
likewise found at some depth from the surface; but, of course, no use is
made of it. The French woods are more luxuriant, and generally composed
of more beautiful trees than those in England and in America. The
chesnut-tree, so common in France, is perhaps unrivalled in its richness
of foliage. The underwood, moreover, is less ragged and troublesome.
Nothing can be more delightful than an evening walk in a French wood.
The soil of the department of the Allier is rather light: on the hills
it is calcareous; in the vales it is a white calcareous loam, the
surface of which is a most fertilizing manure of marl and clay. The
hills, therefore, are peculiarly adapted for vines, which they produce
in great quantities; and when on favourable sites, that is to say, with
respect to the sun, the quality of the wine corresponds with the
quantity. In this province, perhaps, there is a less proportion of waste
land than in any other department in France. The people are industrious,
and the soil is fruitful. There are certainly some wastes, which, under
proper cultivation, might be rendered fertile. I passed over many of
these, when an idea naturally arose in my mind, what a different
appearance they would assume under English or American management. But
the bad management of the French farmers is no derogation from the just
praise of its rich soil.
The natural and agricultural produce is such, as to render these
provinces worthy of their characteristic designation--they are truly the
garden of France. The most beautiful shrubs are common in the woods and
hedges: not a month in the year but one or other of them are in full
flower and foliage. The botanist might be weary before he had concluded
his task. To a northern traveller, nothing appears more astonishing than
the garden-like air of the fields in France: he will see in the woods
and forests, what he has been hitherto accustomed to see only in
hot-houses. The natural history of these provinces would be an
inexhaustible subject: the cursory traveller can only describe
generally.
Wheat, barley, oats, grasses, roots, and vines, are the staple
agricultural produce. The wheat is certainly not so heavy as that in
England, but the barley is not inferior to any barley in the world. The
French farmers calculate upon reaping about sevenfold; if they sow one
bushel, they reap, between six and seven. Potatoes have likewise, of
late years, become an article of field-culture and general consumption
in every department of France, and particularly in those of the Loire,
the Allier, and the Nievre. Every city is supplied with them almost in
as much abundance as the cities of England and America. Where wheat is
scarce, the peasantry substitute them as bread. To say all in a word,
they have of late years got into general consumption; though before the
Revolution they were scarcely known.
The kitchen-garden in the French provinces is by no means so
contemptible as it has been described by some travellers. In this
respect they have done the French great injustice. I will venture to
assert, on the other hand, that nothing is cultivated in the
kitchen-gardens of England and America, but what, either by the aid of a
better climate, or of more careful and assiduous culture, is brought to
more perfection, and produced in greater plenty, in the kitchen-gardens
of France. I have already mentioned potatoes, which are cultivated both
in the garden and in the field: artichokes and asparagus are in great
plenty, and comparatively most surprisingly cheap--as many may be bought
for a penny in France as for a shilling in England. The environs of
Lyons are celebrated for their excellent artichokes; they are carefully
conveyed in great quantities to the tables of the rich all over the
kingdom. Pease, beans, turnips, carrots, and onions, are equally
plentifully cultivated, equally good, and equally cheap.
I have frequently had occasion to speak of the slovenly agriculture of
the French farmers, and I am sorry to have to add, that the fertility of
the provinces of Nivernois and the Bourbonnois, is rather to be imputed
to the felicity of their soil and climate than to their cultivation.
There is certainly a vast proportion of waste land in these provinces,
which only remains waste, because the French landlords and farmers want
the knowledge to bring it into cultivation. Many hundreds of acres are
let at about twelve sols (sixpence) per acre, and would be sold at about
a Louis d'or, which in three years, under English management, would be
richly worth thirty pounds. What a country would this be to purchase in,
if with himself an Englishman or an American could transport his own
labourers and ideas. But nothing is to be done without assistance.
Many of the French landlords retain a great portion of their estates in
their own hands, and cultivate it with more knowledge and with more
liberality than their farmers. A gentleman, farming his own lands, is
always useful to the country, if not to himself. He may improve his
lands beyond their worth--he may ruin himself, therefore, but the
country is proportionately benefitted by having so many good acres where
it had before so many bad. Some of the restored Emigrants have most
peculiarly benefitted France, by bringing into it English improvements.
I have more than once had occasion to remark, that this change is
visible in many parts of the kingdom, and will produce in time still
more important effects.
The price of land is by two-thirds cheaper than in England, I am
speaking now of the Nivernois and Bourboranois. It is generally about
eighteen or twenty years purchase of the rent. If the rent be about
300_l_. English for about five hundred acres of land--half arable, a
fourth forest, and a fourth waste--the purchase will be about 5500
guineas. The very same estate in any part of England would be about
15,000. But in England the forest and waste would be brought into
cultivation. The forest is here little better than a waste, and the
waste is turned to as little purpose as if it were the wild sea beach.
The farms in the Nivernois are very small; the farmers are by natural
consequence poor. They have neither the spirit nor the means of
improvement. They are in fact but a richer kind of peasantry. Those
writers have surely never lived in the country, who urge the national
utility of small farms. The immediate consequences of small farms are
an overflow of population, and such a division and sub-division of
sustenance, as to reduce the poor to the lowest possible point of
sustenance. Population, within certain limits, may doubtless constitute
the strength of a nation; but who will contend, that a nation of
beggars, a nation overflowing with a starved miserable superfluity, is
in a condition of enviable strength?
There are few or no leases in these provinces, and this is doubtless one
of the reasons why agriculture has remained where it now is for these
four or five last centuries. The common course of the crops is wheat,
barley, fallow; or beans, barley, and wheat, and fallow. In some of the
provinces, it is wheat, fallow, and wheat, fallow, in endless
succession.
I do not understand enough of the vine culture to give any opinion as to
the French vineyards, but by all that I have observed, I must fully
assent to the generally received opinion, that the vine is better
understood in France than in Portugal, and that wines are, in fact, the
natural staple in France. It is the peculiar excellence of the vine,
that it does not require fertile land. It will most flourish where
nothing but itself will take root. How happy therefore is it for France,
that she can thus turn her barrens into this most productive culture,
and make her mountains, as it were, smile.
If an Englishman or an American were inclined to give a trial to a
settlement in France, I would certainly advise them to fix on one of
these central departments. They will find a soil and climate such as I
have described, and which I think has not its equal in the world. They
will find land cheap; and as it may be improved, and even the cheap
price is rated according to its present rent, they will find this
cheapness to be actually ten times as cheap as it appears. They will
find, moreover, cheerful neighbours, a people polished in their manners
from the lowest to the highest, and naturally gay and benevolent.
CHAP. XVIII.
_Lyons--Town-Hall-Hotel de Dieu--Manufactories--Price of
Provisions--State of Society--Hospitality to Strangers--Manners--Mode of
Living--Departure--Vienne--French Lovers._
WE reached Lyons in the evening of the third day after we left Moulins.
We remained there two days, and employed nearly the whole of the time in
walks over the city and environs. I adopted this practice as the
invariable rule on the whole course of my tour--to have certain points
where we might repose, and thence take a view both of the place itself,
and a retrospect of what we had passed.
Nothing can be more delightful to the eye than the situation of Lyons.
Situated on the confluence of two of the most lovely rivers in the
world, the Rhone and the Saone, and distributed, as it were, on hills
and dales, with lawn, corn-fields, woods and vineyards interposed, and
gardens, trees, &c. intermixed with the houses, it has a liveliness, an
animation, an air of cleanness, and rurality, which seldom belong to a
populous city. The distant Alps, moreover, rising in the back ground,
add magnificence to beauty. Beyond all possibility of doubt, Lyons is
unrivalled in the loveliness of its situation. The approach to it is
like the avenue to fairy-land.
The horrible ravage of the Revolution has much defaced this town. La
Place de Belle Cour was once the finest square which any provincial town
in Europe could boast. It was composed of the most magnificent houses,
the habitations of such of the nobility as were accustomed to make Lyons
their winter or summer residence. That demon, in the human shape, Collot
d'Herbois, being sent to Lyons as one of the Jacobin Commissioners, by
one and the same decree condemned the houses to be razed to the ground,
and their possessors to be guillotined. A century will pass before Lyons
will recover itself from this Jacobin purgation. In this square was
formerly an equestrian statue of Louis the Fourteenth, adorned on the
sides of the pedestal with bronze figures of the Rhone and the Saone.
This statue is destroyed, but the bronze figures remain.
The town-hall of Lyons is in every respect worthy of the city. It is in
the form of a parallelogram, with wings on each side of the front, each
wing being nearly one hundred and fifty yards in length. The middle of
the wings are crowned with cupolas, and the gates have all Ionic
pillars. The walls and ceilings are covered with paintings. There are
several inscriptions in honour of the Emperor Napoleon; but as these
have been already noted in other books of travels, I deem it unnecessary
to say more of them. But the best praise of Lyons is in its institutions
for charity, in its hospitals, and in its schools. In no city in the
world have they so great a proportion to the actual population and
magnitude of the town. They are equal to the support of one eighth part
of the inhabitants. The Hotel Dieu is in fact a palace built for the
sick poor. The rooms are lofty, with cupolas, and all of them very
carefully ventilated. The beds are clean to an extreme degree, as was
likewise every utensil in the kitchen, and the kitchen itself. The
nursing, feeding, &c. of the sick is performed by a religious society of
about one hundred men, and the same number of women, who devote
themselves to that purpose. The men are habited in black; the women in
the dress of nuns. This charity is open to all nations; to be an
admissible object, nothing further is necessary than to stand in need of
its assistance. This is true charity.
The cathedral is beautifully situated by the river: it is dedicated to
St. John, and is built in the ancient Gothic style. The clock is a great
favourite with the inhabitants. It is ornamented by a cock, which is
contrived so as to crow every hour. Before the Revolution, the church of
Lyons was the richest in France, or Europe. All the canons were counts,
and were not admissible, till they had proved sixteen quarters of
nobility. They wore a gold cross of eight rays. Since the Revolution,
the cathedral has fallen into decay; but it is to be hoped that, for the
honour of the town, it will be repaired.
Lyons has two theatres, Le Grand, and Le Petit Spectacle. Neither of
them deserve any more than a bare mention. The performers had so little
reputation, that we had no wish to visit either of them.
The manufactories of Lyons, being confined in their supply to the home
market, are not in the same flourishing state as formerly. They still
continue, however, to work up a vast quantity of silk, and on the return
of peace, would doubtless recover somewhat of their former prosperity.
Some years since, the silk stockings alone worked up at Lyons, were
estimated at 1500 pair daily. The workmen are unhappily not paid in
proportion to their industry. They commence their day's labour at an
unusual hour in the morning, and continue it in the night, yet are
unable to earn enough to live in plenty.
Lyons appeared to me, from the cursory information which I could obtain,
to be as cheap as any town in France. Provisions of all kinds were in
great plenty, and were the best of their kind. There are three kinds of
bread--the white bread, meal bread, and black or rye bread. The latter
is in most use amongst the weavers. It is very cheap, but the measures
differ so much in this part of France, that I could not reduce them to
English pounds, except by a rough estimate. The best wheaten bread is
about one-third or rather more of the price that it is in England; beef
and mutton in great plenty, and proportionately cheap; a very large
turkey for about two shillings and sixpence, English money. Pit coal is
in common use in almost every house in Lyons: it is dug in the immediate
neighbourhood, and is very cheap. The best land in the province may be
had for about fifteen pounds (English) per acre in purchase. In the
neighbourhood of Lyons, the land lets high, and therefore sells
proportionately. Vegetables are of course in the greatest possible
plenty, and fruit so cheap and so abundant, as to be sold only by the
poorest people. Whoever is particularly fond of a dessert, let him seek
it in France: for a livre he may set out a table, which in London would
take him at least a Louis.
Lyons has given birth to many celebrated men. Amongst them was De Lanzy,
the celebrated mathematician, and friend of Maupertuis. He lived to such
an extreme age as to survive his memory and faculties; but when so
insensible as to know no one about him, Maupertuis suddenly asked him
what was the square of 12, and he readily replied, 144, and died, as it
is said, almost in the same moment. This illustrious genius was as
simple as he was learned. His character, as given amongst the history
of the French literati, is very amiable--of great learning, of extreme
industry, simple and amiable to a degree, and invariably benevolent and
good-tempered. He was yet more distinguished by his charities than by
his learning. The learned Thon likewise was a native of this town.
The society at Lyons very much resembles that of Paris; it is divided
into two classes--those in trade, _i. e._ merchants, and those out of
trade; the military, gentry, &c. The military, though many of them are
certainly of rather an humble origin, are characterized by elegant
manners, by great politeness, and by a gallantry towards the ladies
which would have done honour to the old court. It gave me great
satisfaction to hear this character of them. I should put no value on
any society in which the ladies did not hold their due place and perform
their due parts, and this is never the case, except where they are
properly respected. Gallantry has the same effect upon the manners which
Ovid attributes to learning--"_Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros_."
A stranger at Lyons, who makes the city his temporary residence, is
received with the greatest hospitality into all the parties of the town;
he requires nothing but an introduction to one of them; and even if he
should be without that, an unequivocal appearance of respectability
would answer the same end. The fashionable world at Lyons, however, are
not accustomed to give dinners; they have no notion of that substantial
hospitality which characterizes England. Their suppers however are very
elegant: they have always fish, and sometimes soup, roasted poultry, and
in the proper season, game--pease, cauliflowers, and asparagus, almost
the whole year round. The sparkling Champagne then goes round, and
French wit, French vivacity, and French gallantry, are seen in
perfection. There is certainly nothing in England equal to the French
supper. It is usually served in a saloon, but the company make no
hesitation, in the intervals of conversation and of eating, to visit
every room in the house. Every room is accordingly lighted and prepared
for this purpose; the beds thrust into cupboards and corners, and the
whole house rendered a splendid promenade, most brilliantly lighted with
glass chandeliers and lustres. This blaze of light is further increased
by reflection from the large glasses and mirrors which are found in
every room. In England, the glasses are pitiful to a degree. In France,
even in the inns, they reach in one undivided plate from the top of the
room to the bottom. The French furniture moreover is infinitely more
magnificent than in England. Curtains, chair-covers, &c. are all of
silk, and the chairs fashioned according to the designs of artists. The
French music too, such as attends on their parties, exceeds that of
England; in a few words, a party in France is a spectacle; it is
arranged with art; and where there is much art, there will always be
some taste.
In the neighbourhood of Lyons are numerous chateaus, most delightfully
situated, with lawns, pleasure-grounds, gardens, and green-houses, in
the English taste. In the summer season, public breakfasts are almost
daily given by one or other of the possessors. Marquees are then erected
on the lawn, and all the military bands in the town attend. The day is
consumed in dancing, which is often protracted so late in the night, as
almost to trespass on the day following. These kind of parties are
perhaps too favourable for intrigue, to suit English or American
manners, but they are certainly delightful in a degree, and recall to
one's fancy the images of poetry.
The French ladies, as I believe I have before mentioned, are fond of
habiting themselves as harvesters: they frequently visit the farmers
thus _incog._ and hire themselves for the day. Though the farmer knows
them, it is the established custom that he should favour the sport by
pretending ignorance, and treating them in every respect as if they were
what they seemed. This is another means of indulging that general
disposition to gallantry which characterizes a Frenchwoman. They must
have lovers of all degrees and qualities; for vanity is at the bottom of
this assumed humility.
Lodging at Lyons, in which I include board, is extremely cheap: for
about thirty pounds per annum you may board in the first houses, and I
was informed that every one is welcome but Italians. The French have an
extreme contempt for Italians. A house at Lyons may likewise be hired
very cheap. The pleasantest houses, however, are situated out of the
town; and I have no doubt, but that such an house as would cost in
England one hundred per annum, might be hired in the environs of Lyons,
in the loveliest country in the world, by the sides of the Rhone and the
Saone, and with a view of the Alps, for about twenty-five Louis annual
rent. Every house has a garden, and many of them mulberry orchards, a
wood, and pleasure-grounds.
We left Lyons on the morning of the third day after our arrival, much
pleased with our stay, and with the general appearance of the city and
the inhabitants. Avignon was the next main point of our destination. As
the distance between Lyons and Avignon is about 120 miles, we
distributed our journey into three divisions, and as many days.