Part 16

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 300l. 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.

The farms in the Nivernois are very small; the farmers are by natural consequence poor. They have neither the spirit nor the means of improvement. They are in fact but a richer kind of peasantry. Those writers have surely never lived in the country, who urge the national utility of small farms. The immediate consequences of small farms are an overflow of population, and such a division and sub-division of sustenance, as to reduce the poor to the lowest possible point of sustenance. Population, within certain limits, may doubtless constitute the strength of a nation; but who will contend, that a nation of beggars, a nation overflowing with a starved miserable superfluity, is in a condition of enviable strength?

There are few or no leases in these provinces, and this is doubtless one of the reasons why agriculture has remained where it now is for these four or five last centuries. The common course of the crops is wheat, barley, fallow; or beans, barley, and wheat, and fallow. In some of the provinces, it is wheat, fallow, and wheat, fallow, in endless succession.

I do not understand enough of the vine culture to give any opinion as to the French vineyards, but by all that I have observed, I must fully assent to the generally received opinion, that the vine is better understood in France than in Portugal, and that wines are, in fact, the natural staple in France. It is the peculiar excellence of the vine, that it does not require fertile land. It will most flourish where nothing but itself will take root. How happy therefore is it for France, that she can thus turn her barrens into this most productive culture, and make her mountains, as it were, smile.

If an Englishman or an American were inclined to give a trial to a settlement in France, I would certainly advise them to fix on one of these central departments. They will find a soil and climate such as I have described, and which I think has not its equal in the world. They will find land cheap; and as it may be improved, and even the cheap price is rated according to its present rent, they will find this cheapness to be actually ten times as cheap as it appears. They will find, moreover, cheerful neighbours, a people polished in their manners from the lowest to the highest, and naturally gay and benevolent.

CHAP. XVIII.

Lyons--Town-Hall-Hotel de Dieu--Manufactories--Price of Provisions--State of Society--Hospitality to Strangers--Manners--Mode of Living--Departure--Vienne--French Lovers.

WE reached Lyons in the evening of the third day after we left Moulins. We remained there two days, and employed nearly the whole of the time in walks over the city and environs. I adopted this practice as the invariable rule on the whole course of my tour--to have certain points where we might repose, and thence take a view both of the place itself, and a retrospect of what we had passed.

Nothing can be more delightful to the eye than the situation of Lyons. Situated on the confluence of two of the most lovely rivers in the world, the Rhone and the Saone, and distributed, as it were, on hills and dales, with lawn, corn-fields, woods and vineyards interposed, and gardens, trees, &c. intermixed with the houses, it has a liveliness, an animation, an air of cleanness, and rurality, which seldom belong to a populous city. The distant Alps, moreover, rising in the back ground, add magnificence to beauty. Beyond all possibility of doubt, Lyons is unrivalled in the loveliness of its situation. The approach to it is like the avenue to fairy-land.

The horrible ravage of the Revolution has much defaced this town. La Place de Belle Cour was once the finest square which any provincial town in Europe could boast. It was composed of the most magnificent houses, the habitations of such of the nobility as were accustomed to make Lyons their winter or summer residence. That demon, in the human shape, Collot d'Herbois, being sent to Lyons as one of the Jacobin Commissioners, by one and the same decree condemned the houses to be razed to the ground, and their possessors to be guillotined. A century will pass before Lyons will recover itself from this Jacobin purgation. In this square was formerly an equestrian statue of Louis the Fourteenth, adorned on the sides of the pedestal with bronze figures of the Rhone and the Saone. This statue is destroyed, but the bronze figures remain.

The town-hall of Lyons is in every respect worthy of the city. It is in the form of a parallelogram, with wings on each side of the front, each wing being nearly one hundred and fifty yards in length. The middle of the wings are crowned with cupolas, and the gates have all Ionic pillars. The walls and ceilings are covered with paintings. There are several inscriptions in honour of the Emperor Napoleon; but as these have been already noted in other books of travels, I deem it unnecessary to say more of them. But the best praise of Lyons is in its institutions for charity, in its hospitals, and in its schools. In no city in the world have they so great a proportion to the actual population and magnitude of the town. They are equal to the support of one eighth part of the inhabitants. The Hotel Dieu is in fact a palace built for the sick poor. The rooms are lofty, with cupolas, and all of them very carefully ventilated. The beds are clean to an extreme degree, as was likewise every utensil in the kitchen, and the kitchen itself. The nursing, feeding, &c. of the sick is performed by a religious society of about one hundred men, and the same number of women, who devote themselves to that purpose. The men are habited in black; the women in the dress of nuns. This charity is open to all nations; to be an admissible object, nothing further is necessary than to stand in need of its assistance. This is true charity.

The cathedral is beautifully situated by the river: it is dedicated to St. John, and is built in the ancient Gothic style. The clock is a great favourite with the inhabitants. It is ornamented by a cock, which is contrived so as to crow every hour. Before the Revolution, the church of Lyons was the richest in France, or Europe. All the canons were counts, and were not admissible, till they had proved sixteen quarters of nobility. They wore a gold cross of eight rays. Since the Revolution, the cathedral has fallen into decay; but it is to be hoped that, for the honour of the town, it will be repaired.

Lyons has two theatres, Le Grand, and Le Petit Spectacle. Neither of them deserve any more than a bare mention. The performers had so little reputation, that we had no wish to visit either of them.

The manufactories of Lyons, being confined in their supply to the home market, are not in the same flourishing state as formerly. They still continue, however, to work up a vast quantity of silk, and on the return of peace, would doubtless recover somewhat of their former prosperity. Some years since, the silk stockings alone worked up at Lyons, were estimated at 1500 pair daily. The workmen are unhappily not paid in proportion to their industry. They commence their day's labour at an unusual hour in the morning, and continue it in the night, yet are unable to earn enough to live in plenty.

Lyons appeared to me, from the cursory information which I could obtain, to be as cheap as any town in France. Provisions of all kinds were in great plenty, and were the best of their kind. There are three kinds of bread--the white bread, meal bread, and black or rye bread. The latter is in most use amongst the weavers. It is very cheap, but the measures differ so much in this part of France, that I could not reduce them to English pounds, except by a rough estimate. The best wheaten bread is about one-third or rather more of the price that it is in England; beef and mutton in great plenty, and proportionately cheap; a very large turkey for about two shillings and sixpence, English money. Pit coal is in common use in almost every house in Lyons: it is dug in the immediate neighbourhood, and is very cheap. The best land in the province may be had for about fifteen pounds (English) per acre in purchase. In the neighbourhood of Lyons, the land lets high, and therefore sells proportionately. Vegetables are of course in the greatest possible plenty, and fruit so cheap and so abundant, as to be sold only by the poorest people. Whoever is particularly fond of a dessert, let him seek it in France: for a livre he may set out a table, which in London would take him at least a Louis.

Lyons has given birth to many celebrated men. Amongst them was De Lanzy, the celebrated mathematician, and friend of Maupertuis. He lived to such an extreme age as to survive his memory and faculties; but when so insensible as to know no one about him, Maupertuis suddenly asked him what was the square of 12, and he readily replied, 144, and died, as it is said, almost in the same moment. This illustrious genius was as simple as he was learned. His character, as given amongst the history of the French literati, is very amiable--of great learning, of extreme industry, simple and amiable to a degree, and invariably benevolent and good-tempered. He was yet more distinguished by his charities than by his learning. The learned Thon likewise was a native of this town.

The society at Lyons very much resembles that of Paris; it is divided into two classes--those in trade, i. e. merchants, and those out of trade; the military, gentry, &c. The military, though many of them are certainly of rather an humble origin, are characterized by elegant manners, by great politeness, and by a gallantry towards the ladies which would have done honour to the old court. It gave me great satisfaction to hear this character of them. I should put no value on any society in which the ladies did not hold their due place and perform their due parts, and this is never the case, except where they are properly respected. Gallantry has the same effect upon the manners which Ovid attributes to learning--"Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."

A stranger at Lyons, who makes the city his temporary residence, is received with the greatest hospitality into all the parties of the town; he requires nothing but an introduction to one of them; and even if he should be without that, an unequivocal appearance of respectability would answer the same end. The fashionable world at Lyons, however, are not accustomed to give dinners; they have no notion of that substantial hospitality which characterizes England. Their suppers however are very elegant: they have always fish, and sometimes soup, roasted poultry, and in the proper season, game--pease, cauliflowers, and asparagus, almost the whole year round. The sparkling Champagne then goes round, and French wit, French vivacity, and French gallantry, are seen in perfection. There is certainly nothing in England equal to the French supper. It is usually served in a saloon, but the company make no hesitation, in the intervals of conversation and of eating, to visit every room in the house. Every room is accordingly lighted and prepared for this purpose; the beds thrust into cupboards and corners, and the whole house rendered a splendid promenade, most brilliantly lighted with glass chandeliers and lustres. This blaze of light is further increased by reflection from the large glasses and mirrors which are found in every room. In England, the glasses are pitiful to a degree. In France, even in the inns, they reach in one undivided plate from the top of the room to the bottom. The French furniture moreover is infinitely more magnificent than in England. Curtains, chair-covers, &c. are all of silk, and the chairs fashioned according to the designs of artists. The French music too, such as attends on their parties, exceeds that of England; in a few words, a party in France is a spectacle; it is arranged with art; and where there is much art, there will always be some taste.

In the neighbourhood of Lyons are numerous chateaus, most delightfully situated, with lawns, pleasure-grounds, gardens, and green-houses, in the English taste. In the summer season, public breakfasts are almost daily given by one or other of the possessors. Marquees are then erected on the lawn, and all the military bands in the town attend. The day is consumed in dancing, which is often protracted so late in the night, as almost to trespass on the day following. These kind of parties are perhaps too favourable for intrigue, to suit English or American manners, but they are certainly delightful in a degree, and recall to one's fancy the images of poetry.

The French ladies, as I believe I have before mentioned, are fond of habiting themselves as harvesters: they frequently visit the farmers thus incog. and hire themselves for the day. Though the farmer knows them, it is the established custom that he should favour the sport by pretending ignorance, and treating them in every respect as if they were what they seemed. This is another means of indulging that general disposition to gallantry which characterizes a Frenchwoman. They must have lovers of all degrees and qualities; for vanity is at the bottom of this assumed humility.

Lodging at Lyons, in which I include board, is extremely cheap: for about thirty pounds per annum you may board in the first houses, and I was informed that every one is welcome but Italians. The French have an extreme contempt for Italians. A house at Lyons may likewise be hired very cheap. The pleasantest houses, however, are situated out of the town; and I have no doubt, but that such an house as would cost in England one hundred per annum, might be hired in the environs of Lyons, in the loveliest country in the world, by the sides of the Rhone and the Saone, and with a view of the Alps, for about twenty-five Louis annual rent. Every house has a garden, and many of them mulberry orchards, a wood, and pleasure-grounds.