156 



Travels in France 



dined with us. This is in a true farming style; it has many 

 conveniencies, and looks like a plan of living which does not 

 promise, like the foppish modes of little gentlemen, to run 

 through a fortune from false shame and silly pretensions. I 

 can find no other fault with his system than having built a house 

 enormously beyond his plan of living, which can have no other 

 effect than tempting some successor, less prudent than himself, 

 into expenses that might dissipate all his and his father's savings. 

 In England that would certainly be the case : the danger, how- 

 ever, is not equal in France. 



^th. To Chateau Thiery, following the course of the Marne. 

 The country is pleasantly varied, and hilly enough to render it 

 a constant picture, were it enclosed. Thiery is beautifully 

 situated on the same river. I arrived there by five o'clock, and 

 wished, in a period so interesting to France, and indeed to all 

 Europe, to see a newspaper. I asked for a coffee-house, not one 

 in the town. Here are two parishes, and some thousands of 

 inhabitants, and not a newspaper to be seen by a traveller, even 

 in a moment when all ought to be anxiety. — What stupidity, 

 poverty, and want of circulation! This people hardly deserve 

 to be free; and should there be the least attempt with vigour 

 to keep them otherwise, it can hardly fail of succeeding. To 

 those who have been used to travel amidst the energetic and rapid 

 circulation of wealth, animation, and intelligence of England, 

 it is not possible to describe, in words adequate to one's feelings, 

 the dulness and stupidity of France. I have been to-day on 

 one of their greatest roads, within thirty miles of Paris, yet I 

 have not seen one diligence, and met but a single gentleman's 

 carriage, nor anything else on the road that looked like a gentle- 

 man. — 30 miles. 



c^th. To Mareuil. The Marne, about 25 rods broad, flows in 

 an arable vale to the right. The country hilly, and parts of it 

 pleasant ; from one elevation there is a noble view of the river. 

 Mareuil is the residence of Monsieur Le Blanc, of whose hus- 

 bandry and improvements, particularly in sheep of Spain, and 

 cows of Switzerland, Monsieur de Broussonet had spoken very 

 advantageously. This was the gentleman also on whom I 

 depended for information relative to the famous vineyards of 

 Epernay that produce the fine Champagne. What therefore 

 was my disappointment when his servants informed me that he 

 was nine leagues off on business. Is Madame Le Blanc at 

 home.'* No, she is at Dormans. My complaining ejaculations 

 were interrupted by the approach of a very pretty young lady, 



