202 Travels in France 



from Spain : the contrast is striking ; and I seemed to hug myself 

 that I was again in a Christian country among the Milors Ninchi- 

 treas, and my Ladi Bettis, of Monsieur Chabot. — 23 miles. 



22nd. Having a letter to Monsieur Faujas de St. Fond^ the 

 celebrated naturalist^ who has favoured the world with many 

 important works on volcanoes, aerostation, and various other 

 branches of natural history, I had the satisfaction, on inquiring, 

 to find that he was at Montilimart; and, waiting on him, to 

 perceive that a man of distinguished merit was handsomely 

 lodged, with everything about him that indicated an easy fortune. 

 He received me with the frank politeness inherent in his char- 

 acter; introduced me, on the spot, to a Monsieur I'Abbe Berenger, 

 who resided near his country seat, and was he said an excellent 

 cultivator ; and likewise to another gentleman, whose taste had 

 taken the same good direction. In the evening Monsieur Faujas 

 took me to call on a female friend, who was engaged in the same 

 inquiries, Madame Cheinet, whose husband is a member of the 

 National Assembly; if he has the good luck to find at Versailles 

 some other lady as agreeable as her he has left at Montilimart 

 his mission will not be a barren one; and he may perhaps be 

 better employed than in voting regenerations. This lady accom- 

 panied us in a walk for viewing the environs of Montilimart ; and 

 it gave me no small pleasure to find that she was an excellent 

 farmeress, practises considerably, and had the goodness to 

 answer many of my inquiries, particularly in the culture of silk. 

 I was so charmed with the naivete of character, and pleasing con- 

 versation of this very agreeable lady, that a longer stay here 

 would have been delicious — but the plough ! 



2yd. By appointment, accompanied Monsieur Faujas to his 

 country seat and farm at I'Oriol, fifteen miles north of Montili- 

 mart, where he is building a good house. I was pleased to find 

 his farm amount to 280 septeres of land : I should have liked it 

 better had it not been in the hands of a metayer. Monsieur 

 Faujas pleases me much; the liveliness, vivacity, phlogiston of 

 his character, do not run into pertness, foppery, or affectation ; 

 he adheres steadily to a subject; and shows that to clear up any 

 dubious point by the attrition of different ideas in conversation 

 gives him pleasure; not through a vain fluency of colloquial 

 powers, but for better understanding a subject. The next day 

 Monsieur I'Abbe Berenger, and another gentleman, passed it at 

 Monsieur Faujas' : we walked to the abbe's farm. He is of the 

 good order of beings, and pleases me much; cure of the parish and 

 president of the permanent council. He is at present warm on a 



