TOEEENTS IN" FEANCE. 245 



springs, and the process of clearing the soil went on so slowl;^ 

 that, for centuries, neither the want of timber and fuel, nor the 

 other evils about to be depicted, were seriously felt. Indeed, 

 throughout the Middle Ages, these provinces were well wooded, 

 and famous for the fertihtj and abundance, not only of the low 

 grounds, but of the hills. 



Such was the state of tilings at the close of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury. The statistics of the seventeenth show that while there 

 had been an increase of prosperity and population in Lower 

 Provence, as well as in the correspondingly situated parts of the 

 other two provinces I have mentioned, there was an alarming de- 

 crease both in the wealth and in the population of Upper Pro- 

 vence and Daupliiny, although, by the clearing of the forests, a 

 great extent of ploughland and pasturage had been added to the 

 soil before reduced to cultivation. It was found, in fact, that the 

 augmented violence of the torrents had swept away, or buried in 

 sand and gravel, more land than had been reclaimed by clearing ; 

 and the taxes, computed by fires or habitations, underwent several 

 successive reductions in consequence of the gradual abandonment 

 of the wasted soil by its starving occupants. The growth of the 

 large towns on and near the Rhone and the coast, their advance 

 in commerce and industry, and the consequently enlarged demand 

 for agricultural products, ought naturally to have increased the 

 rural population and the value of their lands ; but the physical 

 decay of the uplands was such that considerable tracts were 

 deserted altogether, and in Upper Provence, the fires which in 

 1471 counted 897, were reduced to 747 in 1699, to 728 in 1733, 

 and to 635 in 1776.* 



SureU — whose admirable work, Etude sur les Torrents dea 

 Hautes Aljpes, first pubhshed in 1841,f presents a most appalling 

 picture of the desolations of the torrent, and, at the same time, 

 the most careful studies of the history and essential character of 

 this great evil — ^in speaking of the valley of Devoluy, on page 

 152, says : " Everything concurs to show that it was anciently 



* These facts I take from the La Provence au point de mte des Bois, dea 

 Torrents et des Inondations, of Charles de Ribbe, one of the highest authorities. 



f A second edition of this work, vnth an additional volume of great value 

 by Ernest Cezanne, was published at Paris, in two 8vo volumes, in 1871-72. 



