TORRENTS IN FRANCE. 
243 
will be separated from Savoy, as Egypt from Syria, by a 
desert.” * 
It deserves to be specially noticed that the district here 
referred to, though now among the most hopelessly waste in 
France, was very productive even down to so late a period as 
the commencement of the French Revolution. Arthur Young, 
writing in 1789, says : “ About Barcelonette and in the high¬ 
est parts of the mountains, the hill pastures feed a million of 
sheep, besides large herds of other cattle; ” and he adds: 
u With such a soil, and in such a climate we are not to sup¬ 
pose a country barren because it is mountainous. The valleys 
I have visited are, in general, beautiful.” f He ascribes the 
same character to the provinces of Dauphiny, Provence, and 
Auvergne, and, though he visited, with the eye of an attentive 
and practised observer, many of the scenes since blasted with 
the wild desolation described by Blanqui, the Durance and a 
part of the course of the Loire are the only streams he men¬ 
tions as inflicting serious injury by their floods. The ravages 
of the torrents had, indeed, as we have seen, commenced earlier 
in some other localities, but we are authorized to infer that 
they were, in Young’s time, too limited in range, and rela¬ 
tively too insignificant, to require notice in a general view of 
the provinces where they have now ruined so large a propor¬ 
tion of the soil. 
But I resume my citations. 
“ I do not exaggerate,” says Blanqui. “ When I shall have 
finished my excursion and designated localities by their names, 
* Ladoucette says the peasant of Devoluy “ often goes a distance of 
five hours over rocks and precipices for a single [man’s] load of wood ; ” 
and he remarks on another page, that “ the justice of peace of that canton 
had, in the course of forty-three years, but once heard the voice of the 
nightingale.”— Histoire , etc., des Hautes Alpes , pp. 220, 434. 
t The valley of Embrun, now almost completely devastated, was once 
remarkable for its fertility. In 1806, Hericart de Thury said of it: “In 
this magnificent valley nature had been prodigal of her gifts. Its inhabit¬ 
ants have blindly revelled in her favors, and fallen asleep in the midst of 
her profusion.”— Becquerel, Des Glvmats , etc., p. 314. 
