loo Travels in France 



3 livres a night, but even the very stable for my horse, after 

 enormous items for oats, hay, and straw. This is a species of 

 profligacy which debases the national character. Calling, as 

 I returned, on Monsieur Baillo, I showed him the bill, at which 

 he exclaimed for imposition, and said the man and woman 

 were going to leave off their trade; and no wonder if they 

 had made a practice of fleecing others in that manner. Let 

 no one go to Cherbourg without making a bargain for every- 

 thing he has, even to the straw and stable; pepper, salt, and 

 table-cloth. — lo miles. 



2Sth. Return to Carentan ; and the 29th, pass through a 

 rich and thickly enclosed country, to Coutances, capital of the 

 district called the Cotentin. They build in this country the best 

 mud houses and barns I ever saw, excellent habitations even of 

 three stories, and all of mud, with considerable barns and other 

 offices. The earth (the best for the purpose is a rich brown 

 loam) is well kneaded with straw; and being spread about four 

 inches thick on the ground, is cut in squares of nine inches, and 

 these are taken with a shovel and tossed to the man on the wall 

 who builds it; and the wall built, as in Ireland, in layers each 

 three feet high, that it may dry before they advance. The thick- 

 ness about two feet. They make them project about an inch, 

 which they cut off layer by layer perfectly smooth. If they had 

 the English way of white washing they would look as well as our 

 lath and plaster, and are much more durable. In good houses 

 the doors and windows are in stone work. — 20 miles. 



^oih. A fine sea view of the Isles of Chausee, at five leagues 

 distant ; and afterwards Jersey, clear at about forty miles, with 

 that of the town of Grandval on a high peninsula: entering the 

 town, every idea of beauty is lost ; a close, nasty, ugly, ill-built 

 hole : market day, and myriads of triflers, common at a French 

 market. The bay of Cancalle, all along to the right, and St. 

 Michael's rock rising out of the sea, conically, with a castle on 

 the top, a most singular and picturesque object. — 30 miles. 



315/. At Pont Orsin, enter Bretagne; there seems here a 

 more minute division of farms than before. There is a long 

 street in the episcopal town of Doll without a glass window; 

 a horrid appearance. My entry into Bretagne gives me an idea 

 of its being a miserable province. — 22 miles. 



September i. To Combourg, the country has a savage 

 aspect; husbandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, 

 than among the Hurons, which appears incredible amidst en- 

 closures; the people almost as wild as their country, and their 



