Travels in France during the years 1814-15. Patrick Fraser Tytler

       Vous Monsieur Pitt vous balancez,

       Formez la chaine Anglaise,

       Pas de cotè—croisez—chassez—

       C'est la danse Française!

      The humour of this song depends on the happy application of the names of the French dances, and the terms employed in them, to the subjects on which it is written, the conclusion of the German campaigns, and the meditated invasion of England.

      The Prussians who were quartered at Boulogne, and all the adjoining towns and villages, belonged to the corps of General Von York. Most of the infantry regiments were composed in part of young recruits, but the old soldiers, and all the cavalry, had a truly military appearance; and their swarthy weather-beaten countenances, their coarse and patched, but strong and serviceable dresses and accoutrements, the faded embroidery of their uniforms, and the insignia of orders of merit with which almost all the officers, and many of the men, were decorated, bore ample testimony to their participation in the labours and the honours of the celebrated army of Silesia.

      Some of them who spoke French, when we enquired where they had been, told us, in a tone of exultation, rather than of arrogance, that they had entered Paris—"le sabre a la main."

      The appearance of the country is considerably better in Picardy than in Artois, but the general features do not materially vary until you reach the Oise. The peasantry seem to live chiefly in villages, through which the road passes, and the cottages composing which resemble those of Scotland more than of England. They are generally built in rows; many of them are white-washed, but they are very dirty, and have generally no gardens attached to them; and a great number of the inhabitants seem oppressed with poverty to a degree unknown in any part of Britain. The old and infirm men and women who assembled round our carriage, when it stopped in any of these villages, to ask for alms, appeared in the most abject condition; and so far from observing, as one English traveller has done, that there are few beggars in France, it appeared to us that there are few inhabitants of many of these country villages who are ashamed to beg.

      To this unfavourable account of the aspect of this part of France, there are, however, exceptions: We were struck with the beauty of the village of Nouvion, between Montreuil and Abbeville, which resembles strongly the villages in the finest counties of England: The houses here have all gardens surrounding them, which are the property of the villagers. In the neighbourhood of Abbeville, and of Beauvais, there are also some neat villages; and the country around these towns is rich, and well cultivated, and beautifully diversified with woods and vineyards; and, in general, in advancing southwards, the country, though still uninclosed, appears more fertile and better clothed. Many of the villages are surrounded with orchards, and long rows of fruit-trees extend from some of them for miles together along the sides of the roads; long regular rows of elms and Lombardy poplars are also very common, particularly on the road sides; and, in some places, chateaux are to be seen, the situation of which is generally delightful; but most of them are uninhabited, or inhabited by poor people, who do not keep them in repair; and their deserted appearance contributes even more than the straight avenues of trees, and gardens laid out in the Dutch taste, which surround them, to confirm the impression of antiquity which is made on the mind of an Englishman, by almost all that he sees in travelling through France.

      The roads in this, as in many other parts of the country, are paved in the middle, straight, and very broad, and appear adapted to a much more extensive intercourse than now exists between the different provinces.

      The country on the banks of the Oise, (which we crossed at Beaumont), and from thence to Paris, is one of the finest parts of France. The road passes, almost the whole way, through a majestic avenue of elm trees: Instead of the continual recurrence of corn fields and fallows, the eye is here occasionally relieved by the intervention of fields of lucerne and saintfoin, orchards and vineyards; the country is rich, well clothed with wood, and varied with rising grounds, and studded with chateaux; there are more carriages on the roads and bustle in the inns, and your approach to the capital is very obvious. Yet there are strong marks of poverty in the villages, which contain no houses adapted to the accommodation of the middling ranks of society; the soil is richer, but the implements of agriculture, and the system of husbandry, are very little better than in Picardy: the cultivation, every where tolerable, is nowhere excellent; there are no new farm-houses or farm-steadings; no signs of recent agricultural improvements; and the chateaux, in general, still bear the aspect of desertion and decay.

      This last peculiarity of French scenery is chiefly owing to the great subdivision of property which has taken place in consequence of the confiscation of church lands, and properties of the noblesse and emigrants, and of the subsequent sale of the national domains, at very low or even nominal prices, to the lower orders of the peasantry. To such a degree has this subdivision extended, that in many parts of France there is no proprietor of land who does not labour with his own hands in the cultivation of his property. The influence of this state of property on the prosperity of France, and the gradual changes which it will undergo in the course of time, will form an interesting study for the political economist; but in the mean time, it will almost prevent the possibility of collecting an adequate number of independent and enlightened men to represent the landed interest of France in any system of national representation.

      In travelling from Calais to Paris, we did not observe so great a want of men in the fields and villages as we had been led to expect. The men whom we saw, however, were almost all above the age of the conscription. In several places we saw women holding the plough; but in general, the proportion of women to men employed in the fields, appeared hardly greater than may be seen during most of the operations of husbandry in the best cultivated districts of Scotland. On inquiry among the peasants, we found the conscription, and the whole of Bonaparte's system of government, held in much abhorrence, particularly among