1 8 Travels in France 



is a fine onCj all busy and alive, for trade is brisk here. Admire 

 the fine acacias scattered about the town. — 20 miles. 



^ist. On leaving it, enter soon the miserable province of 

 Sologne, which the French writers call the triste Sologne. 

 Through all this country they have had severe spring frosts, for 

 the leaves of the walnuts are black and cut off. I should not 

 have expected this unequivocal mark of a bad climate after 

 passing the Loire. To La Ferte Lowendahl, a dead flat of hungry 

 sandy gravel, with much heath. The poor people, who cultivate 

 the soil here, are metayers, that is, men who hire the land without 

 ability to stock it ; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and 

 seed, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miserable 

 system, that perpetuates poverty and excludes instruction. 

 Meet a man employed on the roads who was prisoner at Fal- 

 mouth four years ; he does not seem to have any rancour against 

 the English ; nor yet was he very well pleased with his treatment. 

 At La Ferte is a handsome chateau of the Marquis de Croix, 

 with several canals, and a great command of water. To Nonant- 

 le-Fuzelier, a strange mixture of sand and water. Much 

 enclosed, and the houses and cottages of wood filled between the 

 studs with-clay or bricks^ ajm^^^yeredjiotj^ slate but_tile, 



<_, with some barns boarded like those in Suffolk— rows of pollards 

 I income ollthe hedges ; an exxeireM~road^ ol sand ; the general 



' features of a woodland country; all combiiied_to^iye_a_strong 

 resemblance to many parts of England; "but the husbandry is 

 so little like that of England that the least attention to it 

 destroyed every notion of similarity. — 27 miles. 



June i. The same wretched country continues to La Loge; 

 the fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are 

 of misery. Yet all this country highly improvable, if they 

 knew what to do with it: the property, perhaps, of some of 

 those glittering beings who figured in the procession the other 

 day at Versailles. Heaven grant me patience while I see a coun- 

 try thus neglected— and forgive me the oaths I swear at the 

 absence and ignorance of the possessors. — Enter the generality 

 of Bourges, and soon after a forest of oak belonging to the 

 Count d'Artois; the trees are dying at top, before they attain 

 any size. There the miserable Sologne ends; the first view 

 of Verson and its vicinity is fine. A noble vale spreads at your 

 feet, through which the river Cheere leads, seen in several places 

 to the distance of some leagues, a bright sun burnished the 

 water, like a string of lakes amidst the shade of a vast wood- 

 land. See Bourges to the left. — 18 miles. 



