190 Travels in France 



Flanders and Normandy. This plain is as level as a still lake; 

 the mountains are all volcanic and consequently interesting. — 

 Pass a scene of very fine irrigation, that will strike a farming 

 eye, to Mont Ferrand, and after that to Clermont. Riom, 

 Ferrand, and Clermont are all built, or rather perched, on the 

 tops of rocks. Clermont is in the midst of a most curious 

 country, all volcanic; and is built and paved v/ith lava: much 

 of it forms one of the worst built, dirtiest, and* most stinking 

 places I have met with. There are many streets that can, for 

 blackness, dirt, and ill scents, only be represented by narrow 

 channels cut in a night dunghill. The contention of nauseous 

 savours, with which the air is impregnated, when brisk moun- 

 tain gales do not ventilate these excrementitious lanes, made 

 me envy the nerves of the good people who, for what I know, 

 may be happy in them. It is the fair, the town full, and the 

 table d'hotes crowded. — 25 miles. 



12th. Clermont is partly free from the reproach I threw on 

 Moulins and Besangon, for there is a salle a lecture at a Monsieur 

 Bovares, a bookseller, where I found several newspapers and 

 journals ; but at the coffee-house I inquired for them in vain : — 

 they tell me also that the people here are great politicians, and 

 attend the arrival of the courier with impatience. The con- 

 sequence is, there have been no riots; the most ignorant will 

 always be the readiest for mischief. The great news just arrived 

 from Paris, of the utter abolition of tithes, feudal rights, game, 

 warrens, pidgeons, etc., has been received with the greatest joy 

 by the mass of the people, and by all not immediately interested; 

 and some even of the latter approve highly of the declaration: 

 but I have had much conversation with two or three ven.^ 

 sensible people, who complain bitterly of the gross injustice and 

 cruelty of any such declarations of what will be done, but is not 

 effected and regulated at the moment of declaring. Monsieur 

 I'Abbe Arbre, to whom Monsieur de Broussonet's letter intro- 

 duced me, had the goodness not only to give me all the informa- 

 tion relative to the curious country around Clermont, which 

 particularly depended on his inquiries as a naturalist, but also 

 introduced me to Monsieur Chabrol, as a gentleman who has 

 attended much to agriculture, and who answered my inquiries 

 in that line with great readiness. 



13/A. At Roya, near Clermont, a village in the volcanic 

 mountains, which are so curious, and of late years so celebrated, 

 are some springs, reported by philosophical travellers to be the 

 finest and most abundant in France; to view these objects, 



