Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 - Patrick Fraser Tytler (good books to read in english txt) 📗

June 8th, we left Laon at sunrise, and took the road to St Quentin. For a few miles the road passes through the plain in which the town is placed, after which it enters a pass, formed between the sloping hills, by which its boundary is marked. These hills are, for the most part, soft and green, like those on the banks of the Yarrow in Scotland, but varied, in some places, by woods and orchards; and their lower declivities are every where covered by vineyards and garden cultivation. Near their foot is placed the village of Cressy, which struck us as the most comfortable we had seen in France. The houses are all neat and substantial, covered with excellent slated roofs, and lighted by large windows, each surrounded by a little garden, and exhibiting a degree of comfort rarely to be met with among the dwellings of the French peasantry. On inquiry, we found that these peasants had long been proprietors of their houses, with the gardens attached, and had each a vineyard on the adjoining heights. The effects of long established property were here very apparent in the habits of comfort and industry, which, in process of time, it had ingrafted upon the dispositions and wishes of the people.

After passing the ridge of little hills, through banks clothed with hanging woods, the road descends into a little circular valley, surrounded on all sides by rising grounds, which presented a scene of the most perfect rural beauty. The upper part of the hills were covered with luxuriant woods, whose flowing outline suited the expression of softness and repose by which the scene was distinguished; on the declivities below the wood, the vineyards, gardens, and fruit-trees, covered the sunny banks which descended into the plain, while the lower part of the valley was filled with a village, embosomed in fruit-trees, ornamented only by a simple spire. It is impossible for language to convey an adequate idea of the beauty of this exquisite scene; it united the interest of romantic scenery with the charm of cultivated nature, and seemed placed in this sequestered valley, to combine all that was delightful in rural life. When we first beheld it, the sun was newly risen; his increasing rays threw a soft light over the wooded hills, and illuminated the summit of the village spire; the grass and the vines were still glittering in the morning dew, and the songs of the peasants were heard on all sides, cheering the beginning of their early labour. The marks of cultivation harmonized with the expression by which the scene was characterised; they were emblematic only of human happiness, and had a tendency to induce the momentary belief, that in this sequestered spot the human species shared in the fulness of universal joy.

As we descended into the valley, we perceived a great chateau near the western extremity of the village of Foudrain, which appeared still to be inhabited, and had none of the appearance of decay by which all that we had hitherto seen were distinguished. It belongs to the Chevalier Brancas, who is proprietor of this and seven or eight of the adjoining villages, and whose estates extend over a great part of the surrounding country. On enquiry, we found that this great proprietor had, long before the revolution, pursued a most enlightened and indulgent conduct towards his peasantry, giving them leases of their houses and gardens of 20 or 30 years, and never removing any even at the expiration of that period, if their conduct had been industrious during its continuance. The good effects of this liberal policy have appeared in the most striking manner, not only in the increased industry and enlarged wealth of the tenants; but in the moderate, loyal conduct which they pursued, during the eventful period of the revolution. The farmers on this estate are some of the richest in France; many being possessed of a capital of 15,000 or 16,000 francs, (from £. 750 to £. 800 Sterling,) a very large sum in that country, and amply sufficient for the management of the farms which they possessed. Their houses are neat and comfortable in the most remarkable degree, and the farm-steadings as extensive and substantial as in the most improved districts of England. The ground is cultivated with the utmost care, and the industry of the peasants is conspicuous in every part of agricultural management. It was impossible, in comparing these prosperous dwellings with the decayed villages in most other parts of the country, not to discern, in the clearest manner, the salutary influence of individual security upon the labouring classes; and the tendency which the certainty of enjoying the fruits of their labour has, not merely in increasing their present industry, but awakening those wishes of improvement, and engendering those habits of comfort; which are the only true foundation of public happiness.

During the revolution, when the peasants of all the adjoining estates violently dispossessed their landlords of their property; when every adjoining chateau exhibited a scene of desolation and ruin; the peasants of this estate were remarkable for their moderate and steady conduct; so far from themselves pillaging their seigneur, they formed a league for his defence "—Ils l'ont soutenùs," as they themselves expressed it—and he continued throughout, and is now in the quiet possession of his great estate. It is not perhaps going too far to say, that had the peasants throughout the country been treated with the same indulgence, and suffered to enjoy the same property, as in this delightful district, France would have been spared from all the horrors and all the sufferings of her revolution.

From Foudrain to La Fere, the country is, for the most part, flat; and the road, which is shaded by lofty trees, skirts the edge of a great forest, which stretches as far as the eye can reach to the left; and joins with the forest of Villars Coterets. For many miles the road is bordered by fruit-trees, and the cottages have a most comfortable thriving appearance. To St Quentin the face of the country is flat, though the ridge over which you pass is high; the villages have an appearance of progress and opulence about them, which is rarely to be met with in other parts of France. All the peasantry carry on manufactures in their own houses; and probably their gains are very considerable, as their houses are much more neat and comfortable than in districts which are solely agricultural, and their dress bears the appearance of considerable wealth. The cultivation in the open country still continues, in general, to be wheat, barley, clover, and fallow; but the approach to French Flanders is very obvious, both from the increased quantity of rye under cultivation, from the occasional fields of beans which are to be met with, and from the numbers of potatoes and other vegetables which are to be discerned round the immediate vicinity of the villages. In these villages the houses are white-washed, surrounded by gardens, and have a smiling aspect.

La Fere is a small town, surrounded with trifling fortifications, containing a considerable arsenal of artillery. We were much amused, while there, with the spectacle which the market exhibited. A great concourse of people had been collected from all quarters, to purchase a number of artillery horses which the government had exposed at a low price, to indemnify the people for the losses they had sustained during the continuance of the war. The crowds of grotesque figures which thronged the streets, the picturesque appearance of the horses that were exposed to sale, and the fierce martial aspect of the grenadiers of the old guard, a detachment of whom were quartered in the town, rendered this scene truly characteristic of the French people.

St Quentin is a neat, clean, and thriving town, resembling, both in the forms of the houses, and the opulence of the middling classes, the better sort of the country towns in England. It is the seat of considerable manufactures, which throve amazingly under the imperial government, in consequence of the exclusion of the English commodities during the revolutionary wars. The linen manufacture is the staple branch of industry, and affords employment to the peasantry in their own houses, in every direction in the surrounding country, which is probably the cause of the thriving prosperous appearance by which they are distinguished. The great church of St Quentin, though not built in fine proportions, is striking, from the coloured glass of its windows, and its great dimensions.

The French cultivation continues without any other change than the increased quantity of rye in the fields, and vegetables round the cottages, to the frontier of French Flanders. Still the country exhibits one unbroken sheet of corn and fallow; no inclosures are to be seen, and little wood varies the uniformity of the prospect. In crossing a high ridge which separates St Quentin from Cambray, the road passes over the great canal from Antwerp to Paris, which is here carried for many miles through a tunnel under ground. This great work was commenced under the administration of M. Turgot, but it was not completed till the time of Bonaparte, who employed in it great numbers of the prisoners whom he had taken in Spain. The magnitude of the undertaking may be judged of from the immense depth of the hollow which was cut for it, previous to the commencement of the tunnel, which is so great, that the canal, when seen from the top, has the appearance of a little stream. The course of the tunnel is marked on the surface of the ground by a line of chalky soil, which is spread above its centre, and which can be seen as far as the eye can reach, stretching over the vast ridge by which the country is traversed.

At the distance of three miles from the town of Cambray, the road crosses the ancient frontiers of French Flanders. We had long been looking for this transition, to discover if it still exhibited the striking change described by Arthur Young, "between the effects of the despotism of old France, which depressed agriculture, and the free spirit of the Burgundian provinces, which cherished and protected it." No sooner had we crossed the old line of demarcation between the French and Flemish provinces, than we were immediately struck with the difference, both in the aspect of the country, the mode of cultivation, and the condition of the people. The features of the landscape assume a totally different aspect; the straight roads, the clipt elms, the boundless plains of France are no longer to be seen; and in their place succeeds a thickly wooded soil and cultivated country. The number of villages is infinitely increased; the village spires rise above the woods in every direction, to mark the antiquity and the extent of the population: the houses of the peasants are detached from each other, and surrounded with fruit trees, or gardens kept in the neatest order, and all the features of the landscape indicate the long established prosperity by which the country has been distinguished.

Nor is the difference less striking in the mode of cultivation which is purified. Fallows, so common in France, almost universally disappear; and in their place, numerous crops of beans, pease, potatoes, carrots and endive, are to be met with. In the cultivation of these crops manual labour is universally employed; and the mode of cultivation is precisely that which is carried on in garden husbandry. The crops are uniformly laid out in small patches of an acre or thereby to each species of vegetable; which, combined with the extreme minuteness of the cultivation, gives the country under tillage the appearance of a great kitchen garden. This singular practice, which is universal in Flanders, is probably owing to the great use of the manual labour in the operations of agriculture. Rye is very much cultivated, and forms the staple food of the