Izoire 193 



difficulties attending the solution, they are silent. But how 

 many people, and how many subjects, on which volubility is 

 proportioned to ignorance ? Account for the fact as you please, 

 but it is confirmed with me, and admits no doubt. 



14th. To Izoire, the country all interesting, from the number 

 of conic mountains that rise in every quarter; some are crowned 

 with towns; — on others are Roman castles, and the knowledge 

 that the whole is the work of subterranean fire, though in ages 

 far too remote for any record to announce, keeps the attention 

 perpetually alive. Monsieur de I'Arbre had given me a letter to 

 Monsieur Bres, doctor of physic, at Izoire: I found him, with all 

 the townsmen, collected at the hotel de ville, to hear a newspaper 

 read. He conducted me to the upper end of the room, and 

 seated me by himself: the subject of the paper was the suppres- 

 sion of the religious houses and the commutation of tithes. I 

 observed that the auditors, among whom were some of the lower 

 class, were very attentive; and the whole company seemed well 

 pleased with whatever concerned the tithes and the monks. 

 Monsieur Bres, who is a sensible and intelligent gentleman, 

 walked with me to his farm, about half a league from the town, 

 on a soil of superior richness; like all other farms, this is in the 

 hands of a metayer. Supped at his house afterwards, in an 

 agreeable company, with much animated political conversation. 

 We discussed the news of the day; they were inclined to approve 

 of it very warmly; but I contended that the National Assembly 

 did not proceed on any regular well digested system : that they 

 seemed to have a rage for pulling down, but no taste for rebuild- 

 ing : that if they proceeded much further in such a plan, destroy- 

 ing everything, but establishing nothing, they would at last 

 bring the kingdom into such confusion that they would even 

 themselves be without power to restore it to peace and order; 

 and that such a situation would, in its nature, be on the brink 

 of the precipice of bankruptcy and civil war. — I ventured 

 further, to declare it as my idea, that without an upper house 

 they never could have either a good or a durable constitution. 

 We had a difference of opinion on these points; but I was glad 

 to find that there could be a fair discussion — and that, in a 

 company of six or seven gentlemen, two would venture to agree 

 with a system so unfashionable as mine. — 17 miles. 



15//^. The country continues interesting to Brioud. On the 

 tops of the mountains of Auvergne are many old castles, and 

 towns, and villages. Pass the river, by a bridge of one great 

 arch, to the village of Lampdes. At that place, wait on Monsieur 



c 



