UQ FRANCE, 



It it about five leagues in diameter, and contains between 20 and 25 

 square leagues, or about 150,000 English acres. It is entirely com- 

 posed of shingle, or round gravel ; some of the stones are as large as 

 the head of a man. 



Population.. ..The population of France, before the revolution, was 

 estimated at about 26,000,000 ; but the number of inhabitants in the 

 original territory of France is now found to amount, according to the 

 enumeration lately published by the French government, to 28,700,000, 

 To which if we add the population of the lately united departments, 

 or the countries which the ambition of that government had violently 

 annexed to its own territory, the whole will be swelled to the pro- 

 digious amount of 43,425,000. 



National character, manners, and customs. ...The French, 

 in their persons, are rather lower than their neighbours ; but they 

 are well proportioned and active, and more free than other nations. 

 In general, from bodily deformities. The ladies are celebrated more 

 for their sprightly wit than personal beauty : the peasantry in general 

 are remarkably ordinary, and are best described by being contrasted 

 ^with women of the same rank in England. The upper classes ac- 

 complish themselves in the exercises of dancing, fencing, and riding, 

 in the practice of which they excel all their neighbours in skill and 

 gracefulness. They are fond of hunting ; and the gentry, before the 

 revolution, had left off their heavy jack-boots, their huge war-saddle, 

 and monstrous curb bridle, in that exercise, and accommodated them- 

 selves to the English manners. 



The genius and manners of the French are well known, and have 

 been the subject of many able pens. A national vanity is their pre- 

 dominant character : and they are perhaps the only people ever heard 

 of, who have derived great utility from a national weakness. It sup- 

 ports them under misfortunes, and impels them to actions to which 

 true courage inspires other nations. This character has been con- 

 spicuous both in the higher and middling ranks, where it produces 

 excellent officers ; and in the common soldiers of France, who, it 

 must be confessed, in the late war against the allied powers, exhibit- 

 ed prodigies of valour. But it cannot be denied that excessive 

 cruelty has marked every step of the revolution, both at home and 

 abroad. 



The French affect freedom and wit ; but fashionable dresses and 

 diversions engross too much of their conversation. Their diversions 

 are much the same with those of the English ; but their gallantry is 

 of a very different complexion. Their attention to the fair degene- 

 rates into gross foppery in the men, and in the ladies it is kept up by 

 admitting of indecent freedoms ; but the seeming levities of both 

 sexes are seldom attended with that criminality, which, to people not 

 u,sed to their manners, they seem to indicate ; nor are the husbands 

 so indifferent as we are apt to imagine about the conduct of their 

 wives. The French are excessively credulous and litigious : but 

 of all people in the world they bear adversity and reduction of cir- 

 cumstances with the best grace ; though in prosperity many of them 

 are apt to be insolent, vain, arbitrary, and imperious. 



The French have been much censured for insincerity ; but this 

 charge has been carried too far, and the imputation is generally owing 

 to their excess of civility, which renders their candour suspicious : 

 W private life, they have certainly many amiable qualities ; and a 



