lo Travels in France 



gardens in tlie bastions below are singular. The place has many 

 English; for what purpose not easy to conceive^ for it is unen- 

 livened by those circumstances that render towns pleasant. 

 In a short conversation with an English family returning home, 

 the lady, who is young, and I conjecture agreeable, assured me 

 I should find the court of Versailles amazingly splendid. Oh! 

 how she loved France! — and should regret going to England 

 if she did not expect soon to return. As she had crossed the 

 kingdom of France, I asked her what part of it pleased her best; 

 the answer was such as a pair of pretty lips would be sure to 

 utter, " Oh! Paris and Versailles." Her husband, who is not 

 so young, said " Touraine." It is probable that a farmer is 

 much more likely to agree with the sentiments of the husband 

 than of the lady, notwithstanding her charms. — 24 miles. 



19/A. Dined, or rather starved, at Bernay, where for the 

 first time I met with that wine of whose ill fame I had heard so 

 much in England, that of being worse than small beer./ No 

 scattered farm-houses in this part of Picardy, all being co 

 lected in villages, which is as unfortunate for the beauty of 

 country as it is inconvenient to its cultivation. To Abbeville 

 unpleasant, nearly flat; and though there are many and great! 

 woods, yet they are uninteresting. Pass the new chalk chateau 

 of Monsieur St. Maritan, who, had he been in England, would 

 not have built a good house in that situation, nor have projected 

 his walls like those of an alms-house. 



Abbeville is said to contain 22,000 souls; it is old, and dis- 

 agreeably built; many of the houses of wood, with a greater air 

 of antiquity than I remember to have seen; their brethren in 

 England have been long ago demolished. Viewed the manu- 

 facture of Van Robais, which was established by Louis XIV. and 

 of which Voltaire and others have spoken so much. I had many 

 inquiries concerning wool and woollens to make here; and, in 

 conversation with the manufacturers, found them great poli- 

 ticians, condemning with violence the new commercial treaty 

 with England. — 30 miles. 



2ist. It is the same flat and unpleasing country to Flixcourt. 

 — 15 miles. 

 ^ 22nd. Poverty and poor crops to Amiens; women are now | 

 ploughing with a pair of horses to sow barley. The difference i 

 of the customs of the two nations is in nothing more striking 

 than in the labours of the sex; in England, it is very little that 

 i they do in the fields except to glean and make hay; the first 

 1 is a party of pilfering and the second of pleasure: in France, 



