I found a very good drawing-master at Avignon, an eleve of David, one
who had studied in Italy, an intelligent man; his conversation pleased
and instructed me. I had much difficulty to meet with a master of the
French language: no one here wanted to learn French; they were contented
with such as they talked: there was no demand for institutors in this
branch of education. At last I found a professor of the royal college,
an ingenious man, but utterly unpractised in the art of teaching French,
which he might suppose "came by nature;" and being besides unacquainted
with English, he was unable to explain to his scholars of my family, any
rules of grammar, whether general or particular. That I may dismiss him
with honour in this my mention of him, I will recite an epigram of his
composition at the beginning of the Revolution:
O liberte cherie! en vain je te poursuis:
Par tout je vois ton arbre, et nulle part tes fruits.[50]
Of dancing-masters and music-masters I need not speak; their art is at
the end of their fingers or of their toes. I had some trouble in
managing the temper of the professor of the first of these arts, who was
a Gascon; and the natural pride of the professor of music, who was a
noble: but, by the help of some tact united with good-will, I obtained
my end, which was, that they should depart contented. The climate did
not permit dancing lessons to be taken, except in the winter.
I do not advise any one, habituated to the climate of England, and in
good health, to come abroad for the sake of climate. Charles II. was
certainly right when he said, one may in England be out of doors more
days in the year, and more hours in the day, than in any other country.
I quoted this saying to a friend, who replied, "Mais c'est toujours en
souffrant;"[51] and, being accustomed to heat, he reckoned all suffering
from that cause as nothing: he had been in England, and recollected how
his nose was bitten, and his fingers benumbed by the frost. A friend at
Avignon called on me in the middle of the day, having crept along the
shady side of the streets. It is there the custom in summer to keep the
windows shut during the heat of the day. I complained to my visitant
of this practice, as depriving one of air when gasping for it. "Mais
que voulez-vous? l'air est en feu."[52] I put the thermometer out at
a north window, and it rose two degrees. During the greatest heat of
the hot summer of 1820, I observed the thermometer pretty regularly
at midnight, and found it to stand at 80 Fahrenheit.
One may rise early, and enjoy the coolness of the morning: true; but for
this end it is necessary to go to bed early, and be deprived of the
coolness of the evening. I knew, however, one man who had the good-sense
and resolution to dispose of his day during summer in the following
manner: he went to bed at midnight, rose at four in the morning, took
his exercise, transacted his affairs, eat his dejeune a la fourchette,
as may be supposed, with a good appetite, and went to bed again at
mid-day: at four p. m. he rose again, made his toilette, eat his dinner,
and went into society, till the end of the second of the two days which
he thus contrived to form out of twenty-four hours. I have been told
that such is the practice of the English in the East Indies.
The plague of bugs may be avoided by care and cleanliness: the defence
against gnats is a gause net surrounding the bed; but wo be to those who
find one or more gnats enclosed within the net itself, as happens not
unfrequently from the carelessness of the femme de chambre: the hum of
the insect, and the dread of his attack, deprive you of sleep: there is
no remedy but to wait till he settles upon the face; and then, while he
is busy with his first bite, with an expectant and prepared hand to
crush him. Flies are also very troublesome in these envied regions of
the south; but flies are not like those Cassiuses, the gnats;--"they
sleep o'nights."
The _bise_ or north wind, coming from the frozen Alps, following the
course of the Rhone, and spreading wide to right and left, is very
delightful and refreshing during the summer at Avignon: but, in the
winter, it penetrates even to the marrow of the bones, and sometimes,
for several days together, blows with such violence, that people are
afraid to walk the streets, lest they should be knocked on the head by
falling tiles or chimneys. This _bise_ is supposed to render the climate
healthy: the Avignonais have a proverb:--"Avenio ventosa; si ventosa,
fastidiosa; si non ventosa, venenosa." How far it is "venenosa," I have
but too much reason to know.
The Rhone is sometimes frozen over at Avignon: I have seen people walk
across it on the ice. The cold during part of the winter is sometimes
greater than that of Paris; and I have seen the cold of the _hyver
moyen_[53] of Paris marked, on a French thermometer, as two degrees of
Reaumur lower, that is stronger, than the cold of the _hyver moyen_ of
London. All the world knows that in summer it is much hotter at Paris
than at London: the vine bears witness to it; but both heat and cold are
tempered to England by passing over the sea.
To sum up all that I have to say at present on the subject of climate, I
believe lat. 45, half way between the pole and the equator, to be, all
other circumstances being equal, the best of the climes that are
"mortalibus aegris Munere concessae Divom." Habit reconciles both to cold
and heat. One consideration may not be unimportant to families that wish
to economize: cold is costly. Returning into France from Italy, I find
the difference between the rent of a house in Naples and that of a house
in a country town, to be filled up by the expense of firing; and, at the
beginning of my first winter, am almost ruined in manteaus, great coats,
pelisses, blankets, and other flannels.
A country town in France is better supplied with society than a country
town in England, inasmuch as the French country gentry do not disdain to
live in a country town. All of them have an hotel, an apartment, or at
least a _pied a terre_, as they called it, in the largest country town
in their neighbourhood, and resort thither during the winter. From the
time of the wheat harvest, which in the south is towards the end of
June, till the time for planting is ended, they not only live, but are
very busy in the country. The practice of letting land for the half of
the produce compels them to be on the spot to take charge of their own
share: but, in bad weather, and during the long evenings, they seek
shelter in the town. Here the members of the ancient noblesse, now
without fortune, without privilege, still viewed by the many with
sentiments of political dislike,--maintain their superiority over men,
their equals in moral honesty, more wealthy and better instructed than
themselves. And how do they maintain it? By manners. It is admirable to
see with what grace and ease, without arrogating any thing to themselves
or derogating from others, without art or design,--they assert their
dignity, and contrive that it be recognised by those with whom they
have to do. Some of those who have not the advantage, if such it may be
called, of noble birth, endeavour to imitate, while others affect to
despise, these manners, which throw such a charm over society; but it is
impossible to despise, and very difficult to imitate them: they seem to
result from an early, an almost perpetual consciousness of
self-importance, corrected by a constant intercourse with others
entitled to equal respect and deference. The manners of military men,
more frank, and open, and manly than those of the noblesse, want the
polish attained by the latter: for military men, while they derive
confidence from the glory of their profession, are chiefly conversant
with those whom they command or obey. "The depot of good manners is to
be found with the nobles of ancient families," said one of them to me.
Before the revolution there were in France twenty-seven thousand
families of the noblesse. By the charte the nobles of imperial creation
preserve their titles, the ancient nobles resume theirs. Of titles,
however, very little use is made in conversation; the little particle
_de_ answers all demands of noble self-love; and even a Duc or Duchesse
is contented to be addressed, in familiar parlance, as Monsieur de ----
or Madame de ----. This little particle _de_ multiplies itself with
astonishing rapidity, like the English addition Esq.; and the act by
which it is assumed is no more contested in France, than that which,
with us, niches a man of merit between knight and gentleman. Three or
four _de_ were brought into the world at Avignon, during my stay there.
What shows the practice of unauthorised assumption of the _de_ to be by
no means so novel as its censurers pretended, is, that I found the _de_
sometimes to precede names which signified trades: of these there are
many in all countries; whereas the _de_ ought only to indicate the
_terre_, or estate, like the d'Igby of my maternal ancestors, and can
with propriety be used for no other purpose.
But the ambition of nominal distinction was not always thus cheaply to
be gratified, if I may believe the feeling lament of an old noble, that
is a noble of old family, "Such an one fancies, some fine morning, that
he is a count or marquis: he calls himself so: the world laughs."--"But
the title passes current?" A shrug of the shoulders gave me to
understand that the subject was too distressing to be further pursued. O
chivalry, thou act fallen on grievous,--on money-loving times!
The title of Baronet is insignificant, having its origin too in a paltry
sum of money paid to a needy king. The list (for it is not an order,)
contains names that do honour to it: yet I heard in my youth a young man
of one of the first families in Ireland, afterwards Marquess of ----,
talk peevishly of "a parcel of d----d baronets." In endeavouring to be
superior to their equals, or equal to their superiors, they undertake a
task which must make them unacceptable to both parties. The ancient
noblesse of France has neither feudal rights nor political power; but it
has its origin in what may be called the heroic ages of Europe: the
peerage of France must look up to the nobles with respect; and the
people, that it may honour them, asks only to rank them among its
friends.
It is a pity that the nobles should be generally reproached with want of
instruction: many of them plead in excuse that they are _enfans de la
revolution_, born at a time when their education was of necessity
neglected. I mentioned this excuse to an avocat. "Bah! they well know
that their fathers were as ignorant as themselves." The avocat's
argument was not conclusive; the nobles of the present day might, but
for the unsettled time of their youth, have partaken of the gradual
improvement in knowledge which pervades all classes; and the remark,
"je suis meilleur gentilhomme que mon pere, parceque j'ai une generation
de plus,"[54] might have applied to other advantages than that of
counting one generation more. The French nobles have now no longer that
which, according to Juvenal, makes ignorance tolerable: let us hope they
will avail themselves of their diminished wealth to acquire that
learning, which, according to the proverb, though I do not believe it,
is better than house and land.
The practice of letting farms to a _metayer_, who retains a share of the
produce, and pays his rent with the remainder, is resorted to and
continued from necessity. The farmer has not capital enough to stock a
farm. If the proprietor, after having made the necessary advances for
the occupation of the land, were to let the whole for a money rent, the
farmer would soon be in arrears, and would end by running away.
_Metairie_ I suppose to be derived from the Italian _meta_, which
signifies _half_. The landlord's share is however not always in this
proportion: on fertile soils, and on account of rich products, he
receives more than where more labour is required to reap an equal
or less benefit. I believe the half to be the minimum.
After having passed through nearly the whole length of Europe, with a
taste prepared by a youth passed, as Gibbon says, "in port and
prejudice;" and in the same college too, I venture to assert, that wine
is good in proportion as the country in which it is produced is near the
all-enlivening sun. The wine of Champagne, which cannot remain for a
minute and a half in the glass without growing flat; that of Burgundy,
which is hardly ever found but in an acid state; that of Bordeaux,
"claret for boys;"--not any one of these wines is to be compared (not
for strength only, but for flavour also,) to the wines of the Rhone and
of Provence. Such is my opinion: experto credat who will.
It may amuse my reader to learn that he may perhaps have been drinking
French wine, when he little suspected that it lay concealed in "humble
port." A trade, which in its first stage is not contraband, whatever it
may be in its second, is carried on between the French shores of the
Mediterranean and Portugal: wines are shipped off to Oporto, which, by
the help of brandy and other manipulation, become good port wine for the
London market.
I was told by a negociant, an intelligent man, not a wine-merchant,
that it was the wish of the wine-growers of France, that wine imported
into England should pay a duty _ad valorem_, on the price, not on the
quantity. He did not expect that the English government should be
content to receive a less amount of duty on the same quantity of wine,
the mean quality supposed the same: but he asserted that wines of
inferior quality, which could not be imported in the face of the duty
per gallon, would then find their way; that the consumption of wine
would be much increased; and the English government, as well as the
French wine-dealer and proprietor of vineyards, would both be benefited.
As fiscal regulations have spoiled our malt liquor, it would be but fair
to allow to those who are now ruining their health with rum and water,
the pleasure of drinking sometimes a bottle of small French wine. What?
A bottle of Burgundy at a farmer's ordinary? Gentlemen travellers
drinking claret? So much are men the slaves of habit, that the
supposition appears extravagant; and, after a twelvemonth, the thing
itself would be no more astonishing than it is now in France.
The French, who have seen the atmosphere of smoke in which London is
enveloped, and the sea-coal pouring its volumes of smoke up the
chimney, have disseminated throughout France a certain horror of coal
fires. There are, near Lyons, mines of coal of a quality superior to any
I have yet seen, like the Wednesbury, but better. I had some difficulty
in making the blacksmith comprehend what ought to be the form of such
machines as grate, poker, fender. "Things by their name I call;" though
to my blacksmith I was obliged to use every sort of periphrasis. _My_
poker was made with a hook at the end of it; the fender had a handle to
it; the bars of the grate were too small and too near each other. The
hook of the poker was soon straightened in the fire: of the fender
handle I was contented to declare, "il n'y a pas de mal a cela:"[55] as
the bars of my grate, though near, were not thick; they did not
intercept more heat than usual.
Taking the precaution to have a wood fire in my second salon, I ventured
to invite my friends to see my fire de charbon de terre. They were much
surprised and pleased. "Il n'y a pas de mauvaise odeur: ce feu se fait
respecter: quelle chaleur!"[56] The combined advantages of greater heat
and less cost, (for the coal fire was maintained at about half the
expense of a wood fire,) procured imitators. The general commanding
the department had a grate set up: the smith made it after his own
faulty model, declaring, no doubt, that it was _a l'Anglaise_: the
general was, however, well satisfied, telling me that the coal fire
warmed the three rooms of his apartment as well as a wood fire in each
and every one of them. The woods have been especially ravaged during an
aera of insecure possession; and fire-wood, always an expensive article,
is generally, throughout France, become dearer than formerly, except in
the neighbourhood of great forests.
I will endeavour to enable any one to judge how far it may be worth his
while to come to reside in France from motives of economy. With his
motives for being economical I have nothing to do: any one may be
economical at home who pleases; but it does not please some people to be
economical at home: others wish to have more for the same money. The
French are sometimes puzzled to make out why the English come abroad;
perhaps the English are sometimes equally puzzled themselves: but, with
reference to economy, sometimes the English seem to them to be
travelling for the sake of spending money; sometimes to be staying in
France for the purpose of saving it: the riches as well as the high
prices of England are exaggerated; the latter to a degree that would
make the riches to be merely nominal: then, the difference between
French and English prices is supposed to be so great, that the saving,
by living in France, must be enormous. Many English have, at first, no
clearer notions than the French on these subjects.
The price of almost every article, the produce of agricultural or
manufacturing industry, has been increased one-third, some say
two-fifths, in France since the beginning of the Revolution: the taxes
have been trebled. We know that, within the last thirty years, prices
and taxes have been augmented in England at about the same rates; so
that, on both sides of the water, the proportion has been preserved: but
the English knew very little of France during the war; whereas the
French knew England by their emigrants, who reported truly the high
prices then prevalent: thus some unsettled or erroneous opinions on
domestic economy may be accounted for. I left England while paper
currency was still in _force_, and before prices were lowered as since
they have been: my estimate must be corrected accordingly.
The result of between three and four years experience is, that about
one-sixth is saved by living, not in Paris, but in a provincial town in
France, or that a franc will go as far as a shilling. Set against this
saving the expenses of the journey, and the saving will not be great to
those who do not retrench in their mode of life, but live in France in
the same style as at home. The exchange on bills drawn on England may be
favourable; but some little money sticks in every hand through which
money passes, which balances this advantage.
House-rent is higher in France than in England; fuel much dearer: some
manufactured articles, as woollen cloth for coats, and linen or cotton
for shirts, are equally dear: colonial produce, as sugar and coffee, is
of a variable price, but not much cheaper: tea is cheaper, as the
Americans supply it, or England with a remission of the duty. But there
are no assessed taxes, no poor-rates: provisions I found to be cheaper
by about one-third than I had left them in England; and my younger
children, instead of small beer, with half a glass of wine each after
dinner, now drank wine, with discretion indeed, but at discretion. The
more numerous my family, the greater was the advantage to me of this
diminution of the daily expense of food.
Yet I calculate that at the end of forty-two months, including what the
journey to Avignon cost me, and the difference between the price at
which my furniture was bought, and that at which it was sold,--I had
spent, within one twentieth, as much as it would have cost me to live in
my county town in England with the the same establishment and in the
same manner. The smaller the income annually expended, the greater in
proportion will be the saving; because it is chiefly on the necessary
articles of living, that expense is spared; but a man of large, or even
of moderate fortune, will hardly think it worth his while to dwell many
years in a foreign country merely for the sake of saving five pounds in
a hundred. The less the distance to which he travels, and the longer his
stay; the more he becomes acquainted with the mode of dealing, and
learns what are just prices;--the greater proportionably will be the
savings of the economizing resident. A saving of five per cent is at
least not a loss. Wise men should not entertain extravagant
expectations, and prudent men should know what they are about to
undertake. Those who are neither wise nor prudent had better stay at
home: I do not write for such; but to give to family men such advice as
I found no one capable of giving me; but which, through much toil and
cost and peril, I had obtained the faculty of offering to others.