JOURNEY TO AMIENS, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE
PRESENT STATE OF THE COUNTRY
After all our arrangements had been concluded we proceeded on the route
towards Paris.
We were forcibly struck by the backward state of the vegetation in the
Department of Calais, and we compared the poverty of the exhausted soil
with the luxuriant richness of the county of Kent this early spring.
Over the service of vast unenclosed tracts of land we perceived
scarcely any but women employed in culture of the earth.
The implements of village husbandry, as well as the cattle, were
the worst I ever beheld, and the population did not seem in any
way adequate to the extent of the country. Wherever any vestiges
of religion or aristocracy remained we traced the ravages of the
Revolution. Monasteries and churches were heaps of ruins; if a church
had escaped the general wreck, an inscription over its portal, “This
is the Temple of Reason and Truth,” denoted that it had been abused for
atheistical purposes.
In every village through which we passed crowds of children, women and
old men pressed upon us, begging charity and bread. I inquired into the
causes of this melancholy spectacle. My informer pointed to a monastery
in ruins, and shook his head. I felt the force of this explanation.
The agreeable seaport of Boulogne presented itself before us. When we
reached the gates I asked whether Parker was alive.