Leave England I2i 



pleasure and instruction. I longed to make one for a few days 

 in the evening library circle, but I took it strangely into my head, 

 from one or two expressions, merely accidental in the conversa- 

 tion, coming after my want of letters to France, that I had cer- 

 tainly lost a child in my absence ; and I hurried to London next 

 morning, where I had the pleasure of finding my alarm a false 

 one: letters enough had been written, but all failed. To 

 Bradfield. — 202 miles. 



1789 



My two preceding journe^-s had crossed the whole western half 

 of France in various directions; and the information I had 

 received in making them had made me as much a master of the 

 general husbandry, the soil, management, and productions as 

 could be expected without penetrating in every corner and 

 residing long in various stations, a method of surveying such a 

 kingdom as France that would demand several lives instead of 

 years. The eastern part of the kingdom remained. The great 

 mass of country formed by the triangle, whose three points are 

 Paris, Strasbourg, and Moulins, and the mountainous region S.E. 

 of the last town, presented in the map an ample space which it 

 would be necessary to pass before I could have such an idea of 

 the kingdom as I had planned the acquisition ; I determined to 

 make this third effort in order to accomplish a design which 

 appeared more and more important the more I reflected on it; 

 and less likely to be executed by those whose powers are better 

 adapted to the undertaking than mine. The meeting of the 

 States General of France also, who were now assembled, made it 

 the more necessary to lose no time ; for in all human probability 

 that assembly will be the epoch of a new constitution which will 

 have new effects and, for what I know, attended with a new 

 agriculture ; and to have the regal sun in such a kingdom both 

 rise and set without the territory being known must of necessity 

 be regretted by every man solicitous for real political knowledge. 

 The events of a century and half, including the brilliant reign 

 of Louis XIV., will for ever render the sources of the French 

 power interesting to mankind, and particularly that its state 

 may be known previous to the establishment of an improved 



