4 Julia Crezmtt Stoddard 



spent three years in France collecting data for a work on agri- 

 culture, was "much impressed by the wretchedness of the coun- 

 try people." 1 "An Englishman," he says in his journal for July 

 12, 1789, "who has not traveled can not imagine the figure made 

 by infinitely the greater part of the countrywomen of France ; 

 it speaks at first sight, hard and severe labor." Of one poor 

 woman who complained to him of the hardships of their life, of 

 oppressive feudal dues and heavy taxes crushing them down, he 

 says : "This woman at no great distance might have been taken 

 for sixty or seventy, her figure was so bent and her face so 

 furrowed and hardened by labor, but she said she was only 

 twenty-eight." 2 



There was a marked contrast between country and city. 

 "What a miracle," exclaims Young, "that all this splendor and 

 wealth of the cities of France should be so unconnected with the 

 country ! There are no gentle transitions from ease to comfort, 

 from comfort to wealth ; you pass at once from beggary to pro- 

 fusion, from misery in mud cabins to Mile. Saint Huberti in 

 splendid spectacles at 500 liv. a night. The country deserted, 

 or if a gentleman is in it, you find him in some wretched hole to 

 save that money which is lavished with such profusion in the 

 luxuries of a capital." 3 



Was not this unfortunate state of affairs due in part to the 

 state of agriculture in France? A study of Young leaves little 

 doubt of it. There were great stretches of wild land. Young's 

 journal for September, 1789 contains the following passages: 

 At Nantes, "Mon Dieu, cried I to myself, do all the wastes, the 

 deserts, the heath, ling, furz, broom and bog that I have passed 

 through for 300 miles lead to this spectacle?'" 4 At Frejus, "I 

 passed to-day thirty miles of which five are not cultivated. The 

 whole coast of Provence is nearly the same desert ; yet the cli- 

 mate would give on all these mountains productions valuable for 

 feeding sheep and cattle." And two days journey further on 



1 Young, Travels in France, 12, 83, 84, 88. 



2 Ibid., 134. 

 s IbJd., 89. 



* Ibid. 



270 



