Part 14

Nothing can be more picturesque than the country between Nevers and Moulins. Natural beauty, and the life and activity of cultivation, unite to render it the most complete succession of landscape in France. The road is gravel, and excellent to a degree. It is bordered by magnificent trees, but which have been so planted, as to procure shade without excluding air; the road, therefore, is at once shady and dry. The chesnut trees, which are numerous in this part of the Bourbonnois, in beauty at least, infinitely exceed the British oaks: they have a bossy foliage, which reminds one of the Corinthian volutes. The French peasantry are not insensible of this beauty--wherever there was a tree of this kind of more than common luxuriance in its foliage, a seat was made around the trunk, and the turf mowed and ornamented, so as to shew that it was the scene of the village sports. Though England has many delightful villages, and rustic greens, France beats it hollow in rural scenery; and I believe I have before mentioned, that the French peasantry equally exceed the English peasantry in the taste and rustic elegance with which they ornament their little domains. On the great scale, perhaps, taste is better understood in England than in France, but as far as Nature leads, the sensibility of the French peasant gives him the advantage. Some of the gardens in the provinces of France are delightful.

We passed several fields in which the farming labourers were treading out their corn; indeed the country all around was one universal scene of gaiety and activity in the exercise of this labour. The manner in which it is done is, I believe, peculiar to France. Three or four layers of corn, wheat, barley, or pease, are laid upon some dry part of the field, generally under the central tree; the horses and mules are then driven upon it and round it in all directions, a woman being in the centre like a pivot, and holding the reins: the horses are driven by little girls. The corn thrashed out is cleared away by the men, others winnow it, others heap it, others supply fresh layers. Every one seems happy and noisy, the women and girls singing, the men occasionally resting from their labour to pay their gallant attentions. The scene is so animated as to inspirit the beholder. It is evident, however, that this cheap method of getting up their harvest, is only practicable in countries where the climate is settled: even in this province they are sometimes surprised with a shower, but as the sun immediately bursts out with renewed fervour, every thing is soon put to rights. In Languedoc, as I understood, they have no barns whatever, and therefore this practice is universal. The wheat was not very heavy, it resembled barley rather than wheat; the average crop about sixteen English bushels. Nothing is so vexatious as the French measures; I do not understand them yet, though I have inquired of every one.

Moulins somewhat disappointed my expectation. It is indeed, beautifully situated, in the midst of a rising and variegated country, with meadows, corn-fields, hills, and woods, to which may be added the river Allier, a stream so recluse and pretty, and so bordered with beautiful grounds, as to give the idea of a park. These grounds, moreover, are laid out as if for the pleasure of the inhabitants: the meadows and corn-fields are intersected by paths in every direction; and fruit-trees are in great number, and to all appearance are common property. There is something very interesting in these characteristics of simple benevolence; they recall the idea of the primaeval ages. I have an indistinct memory of a beautiful passage in Ovid, which describes the Golden Age. I am writing, however, without the aid or presence of books, and therefore must refer the classical reader to the original.

The interior of the town does not merit description: the streets are narrow, the houses dark, and built in the worst possible style. The architect has carried the idea of a city into the country: there is the same economy of ground and light, and the same efforts for huddling and comprehending as much brick and mortar as possible in the least possible space. Its origin was in the fourteenth century. The Dukes of Bourbon selected it as a place of residence during the season of the chace, and having built a castle in the neighbourhood, their suite and descendants shortly founded a town. This, indeed, was the usual origin of most of the provincial towns in Europe; they followed the castle or the chateau of the Baron. As seen in the fields and meadows in the vicinity of the town, Moulins has a very agreeable appearance. The river, and the beautiful scenery around it, compensate for its disagreeable interior; and some trees being intermixed with the buildings of the town give an air of gaiety and the picturesque to the town itself.

The market-place is only worthy of mention as introducing the price of provisions. Moulins is as cheap as Tours: beef, and mutton, and veal, are plentiful; vegetables scarcely cost any thing, and fuel is very moderate. Fruit is so cheap as scarcely to be sold, and very good; eggs two dozen for an English sixpence; poultry abundant, and about sixpence a fowl. A good house, such a one as is usually inhabited by the lawyer, the apothecary, or a gentleman of five or six hundred per annum, in the country towns in England, is at Moulins from twelve to fourteen pounds per year, including garden and paddock.

Our inn at Moulins, however, was horrible: our beds would have frightened any one but an experienced traveller.

CHAP. XVII.

_Country between Moulins and Rouane--Bresle--Account of the Provinces of the Nivernois and Bourbonnois--Climate--Face of the Country--Soil--Natural Produce--Agricultural Produce--Kitchen Garden--French Yeomen--Landlords--Price of Land--Leases--General Character of the French Provincial Farmers._

ON the following day we left Moulins for Lyons. The distance between the two places exceeds an hundred miles; we distributed, therefore, our journey into three days, making Rouane on the Loire, and Bresle, our intermediate sleeping places.

Between Moulins and Rouane, that is to say, during the whole of our first day's journey, the country is a succession of hills and valleys, of open and inclosed, of fields and of woodland, which render it to the eyes of a northern traveller the most lovely country in the world. In proportion, however, as the country becomes mere fertile, the roads become worse. We had got now into roads comparatively very bad, but still not so bad as in England and America. The beauty of the scenery, however, compensated for this defect of the roads. We met many waggons, the hind wheels of which were higher than those in front. This is one of the few things in which the French farmers exhibit more knowledge than the English. These wheels of the waggons were shod with wood instead of iron. We passed several vineyards, in which the vines were trained by maples, and festooned from tree to tree. They looked fanciful and picturesque. The vines of this country, however, are said to yield better in quantity than in quality. They produce much, but the wine is bad, and not fit for exportation.

In every hedge we passed were medlars, plumbs, cherries, and maples with vines trained to them. This abundance of fruit gives an air of great plenty, and likewise much improves the beauty of the country. The French fruit of almost every kind exceeds the English. An exception must be made with respect to apples, which are better in England than in any country in the world. But the grapes, the plumbs, the pears, the peaches, the nectarines, and the cherries of France, have not their equal all the world over. They are of course cheap in proportion to their abundance. The health of the peasantry may perhaps in good part be imputed to this vegetable abundance. It is a constant maxim with physicians, that those countries are most healthy, where from an ordinary laxative diet, the body is always kept open. Half the diseases in the world originate in obstructions.

Rouane is a considerable town on the Loire; it is very ancient in its origin, and its appearance corresponds with its antiquity. It is chiefly used as an entrepot for all the merchandize, corn, wine, &c. which is sent down the Loire. It is accordingly a place of infinite bustle, and in despite of the river, is very dirty. He must be more fastidious than belongs to a traveller, who cannot excuse this necessary appendage of trade, and particularly in a town on the Loire, where a walk of ten minutes will carry him from the narrow streets into one of the sweetest countries under Heaven. Even the necessary filth of commerce cannot destroy, or scarcely deface the beauty of the country.

Our inn at Rouane was execrable beyond measure. Without any regard to decency, we were introduced into a sleeping room with three beds, and informed that Monsieur and Madame Younge were to sleep in one, Mademoiselle St. Sillery in another, and myself in the third. It was not without difficulty that I could procure another arrangement. The beds, moreover, were without pillows.

From Rouane to Bresle the country assumes a mountainous form, and the road is bordered with chesnut trees. We had got now into the district of mulberries, and we passed innumerable trees of them. Like other fruit-trees, they grow wild, in the middle of fields, hedge-rows, and by the road side. A stranger travelling in France is led to conclude, that there is no such thing as property in fruit. Every one may certainly gather as much as he chuses for his own immediate use. The peasants of this part of the province are land proprietors; some of them possess twelve or fourteen acres, others an hill, others a garden or a single field. They appeared poor but comfortable. They raise a great quantity of poultry and pigs, and reminded me very forcibly of the Negroes in the West India Islands--a hard-working, happy, and cheerful race. I should not, perhaps, omit to mention, that the houses of the peasants were very different from any that I had yet seen. For the most part, they are square, white, and with flat roofs. They are almost totally without glass in the windows; but the climate is generally so dry and delightful, that glass perhaps would rather be an annoyance. We are apt to attach ideas of comfort or misery according to circumstances peculiarly belonging to ourselves. Tell an English peasant that a Frenchman has neither glass to his windows, nor sheets to his bed, and he will conclude him to be miserable in the extreme. On the other hand, tell a French peasant, that an English rustic never tastes a glass of wine once in seven years, and he will equally pity the Englishman.

Bresle is one of those villages which impress a traveller with a strong idea of the beauty of the country, and of the state of the comfort of its inhabitants. It is broad, clean, and most charmingly situated. On every side of it rises a wall of mountains, covered to their very summits with vines, and interspersed with the cottages of the Vignerons. The river Tardine flows through the valley. This is what is termed a mountain river, being in summer a brook, and in winter a torrent. In the year 1715 it rose so high as to sweep away half the town: the inhabitants were surprised in their beds, and many of them were drowned. The river, when we passed, had no appearance of being capable of this tremendous force: it resembled a little brook, in which a shallow stream of very transparent water rolled over a bed of gravel. "How happy might an hermit be," said Mademoiselle St. Sillery, "in a cottage on the side of one of those hills! There is a wood for him to walk in, and a brook to encourage him, by its soft murmurs, to sleep." I agreed in the observation which exactly characterizes the scenery.

Our inn at this town was in the midst of a garden, covered with fruits and flowers. Our beds reminded me of England, except that again there were no pillows, and absolutely nothing in the chamber but a bed. Every thing, however, was delightfully clean; and as I lay in my bed, I was serenaded by a nightingale.

The road between Moulins and Lyons is certainly the most picturesque part of France; every league presented me with something to admire, and to note. My observations were accordingly so numerous, that I have deemed it necessary to arrange them in some form, and to present them in a kind of connected picture. Mr. Younge had the kindness to answer all my questions as far as his own knowledge went; and where he was at a loss himself, seized the first opportunity of inquiry from others. In France, this is more practicable than it would be in any other country. The French of all classes, as I have repeatedly had occasion to observe, are unwearied in their acts of kindness; they offer their minor services with sincerity, and you cannot oblige them more than by accepting them, nor disappoint them more than by declining them. They have nothing of the surliness of the Englishman. It would be considered as the most savage brutality to hesitate in, and more particularly to refuse with rudeness, any possible satisfaction to a stranger. To be a stranger is to be a visitor, and to be a visitor is to have a claim to the most extreme hospitality and attention. I can never enough praise the French people for their indiscriminate, their natural, their totally uninterested and spontaneous benevolence.

I wish to convey a clear idea of this garden of France: I shall 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.