POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 139 



permit this beneficial quiet. The assassination of Henry 

 IV. again plunged France into chaos ; but the results of 

 this short period of hope were experienced throughout 

 the whole century, and the greatness of Eichelieu and 

 Louis XIV. was in a measure due to the good seed 

 sown at that time. All historical records testify to our 

 country districts being then inhabited by a numerous 

 nobility, whose interests were bound up with those of 

 the rural population ; the fatal separation which lost all, 

 did not take place until a subsequent period. 



Civilisation, during the middle ages, proceeded always 

 from south to north. Agriculture, like the arts, flourished 

 first in Italy. Provence and Languedoc were in early 

 times the best cultivated parts of France, as being nearest 

 to the sun. Oliver de Serres was born on the confines 

 of these two provinces. Great Britain, situated much 

 farther off, did not receive the impulse till later. After 

 Elizabeth's reign, that country was still in a barbarous 

 state. Guichardin, in his time, estimated the popu- 

 lation of England proper at two millions only, others 

 call it four ; now it is sixteen. Three-fourths of the 

 land lay uncultivated. Bands of desperadoes devas- 

 tated the country. The nation, convulsed, sought to 

 be at rest ; but it was necessary that it should pass 

 through a long series of revolutions before settling 

 clown ; and meantime agriculture, like other things, suf- 

 fered. During the whole of the seventeenth century, 

 France sold corn to Great Britain. 



After 1688 everything changed. Clouds gathered 

 over France, now exhausted by the follies of Louis XIV. 

 England, on the contrary, revived and renewed in youth, 

 took a start which was never to be arrested. Instead of 

 advancing, the population of France fell off, while that 

 of England rapidly increased. Boisguillebert, Vauban, 



