380 Different Plans of improving the Bk. iv. 



" If you would see," he says, " a district with 

 " as little distress in it as is consistent with the 

 " political system of the old government of France, 

 " you must assuredly go where there are no little 

 " proprietors at all. You must visit the great 

 " farms in Beauce, Picardy, part of Normandy 

 " and Artois, and there you will find no more po- 

 " pulation than what is regularly employed, and 

 " regularly paid ; and if in such districts you 

 " should, contrary to this rule, meet with much 

 " distress, it is twenty to one but that it is in a 

 " parish, which has some commons which tempt 

 " the poor to have cattle — to have property — and 

 " in consequence misery. When you are en- 

 *' gaged in this political tour, finish it by seeing 

 " England, and I will shew you a set of peasants 

 *•' well clothed, well nourished, tolerably drunken 

 " from superfluity, well lodged, and at their ease ; 

 " and yet amongst them, not one in a thousand 

 " has either land or cattle."* A little farther on, 

 alluding to encouragements to marriage, he 

 says of France, " The predominant evil of the 

 " kingdom is the having so great a population, 

 " that she can neither employ nor feed it ; why 

 " then encourage marriage ? Would you breed 

 " more people, because you have more already 

 " than you know what to do with ? You have so 

 " great a competition for food, that your people 

 " are starving or in misery ; and you would en- 

 " courage the production of more, to increase that 



* Travels in Fiance, vol. i. c. xvii. p. 4/1 . 



