62 Foreign Notices : — France. 



Art. III. Foreign Notices. 

 FRANCE. 



THE Labouring Classes in the South of France. — Sir, Having read in the 

 Gardener's Magazine, with much satisfaction, your descriptions of the state 

 of the peasantry and the working classes in various parts of the Continent 

 of Europe which you have travelled over, I send you an extract from the 

 letter of a highly gifted and intelligent lady, describing the present state of 

 the peasantry in a part of France not much visited by English travellers. 

 The account cannot fail to interest many of your readers. The writer of 

 the letter is well qualified to form a correct estimate of the comparative 

 comfort of the labouring classes in England and France, having for many 

 years taken an active part in ameliorating the condition of the poor in her 

 own neighbourhood, in one of the northern counties in England, where 

 her husband is a most useful and benevolent magistrate. Yours, &c. — B. 



" We have traversed the banks of the beautiful Loire, visited the various 

 old towns of Orleans, Blois, Tours, Saumur, and Nantes, and are de- 

 lighted with the scenes ; but I must not be topographical, when you can 

 have your map out in a minute, and the guide-book to tell you all about 

 them. Nantes was to have been the end of our journey, but then we heard 

 so much of the brilliant Bordeaux ; so on we came, and saw in the way 

 the towns of Rochelle and Rochefort, besides passing through previously 

 the interesting heroic La Vendee. Who can turn back at Bordeaux, 

 when the Pyrenees are so near ? so we took our first view of them at 

 the pretty town of Auch, then to Tarbes, and the day before yesterday 

 brought us to their very foot. 



" You, wrapt in your fog and your smoke, may wonder what an October 

 course in the mountains can offer to attract ; but if you could only be here 

 and see how perfect it is, the air clear and bright, and warm as in our finest 

 August days, the trees still in leaf, and the tints of every colour, and the 

 outline of the hills as finely marked as if a pair of scissors had cut it. We 

 were out from eight till four yesterday, seeing cascades, and rocks, and 



Picturesque hamlets. The heat was almost insupportable ; and for myself, 

 am sure this excursion is made as early as my constitution could 

 endure it. 



" We have long ago left all the English, and are now really living in a 

 foreign land : no more loges royales, no more Elysee dinners or Genlis soirees, 

 as in our former visit to France ; but in their place we have the people of 

 the country always about us, with an opportunity of constantly speaking 

 their language, and becoming acquainted with their habits, manners, and 

 institutions. Cold must be that heart that can make the tour of France 

 without a sympathy for the happiness that every where prevails. If you 

 enter a cottage, and ask how the owner lives, the answer will probably be : 

 — ' Mademoiselle, nous sommes proprietaires ; nous ne sommes pas riches, 

 mais nous sommes independans ; nous sommes contens.'* The beggars are 

 very much diminished; and it is rare indeed to see any one with that 

 starved and wretched look so common in England. This is the fruit of 

 their sudden leap towards liberty. Primogenitureship gone, wealth diffuses 

 itself; hereditary honours abolished, there is hope for the lowest : and 

 then the senate, how wisely it is arranged ! — to sit with the peers you 

 must be 40, with the commons 30 ; and even to vote, you must be 25. 

 Soldiers are never flogged ; and the punishment of death is scarcely ever 

 inflicted. How far are we behind ! It makes me sad to think of it." — 

 -j-f . Haut Pyrenee, Bagnes de Bigorre, Oct. 29. 1831." § 



* "We are proprietors ; we are not rich; but we are independent; we 

 are content." 



§ It will be seen by the elate that this letter was written a little before 



