The adjacent château of the Duc d'Angoulême, his son, as far as the walls, remains perfect; I had not time to see the inside of it. The care of the château has lately been given in charge to one of the former servants of the Prince de Condé.
The roads were in general in excellent condition, and the post-horses tolerably good; but we were in several places kept some time waiting for them. This is not to be wondered at, if we consider how little they have been accustomed to travellers for some years past.
A great number of the best houses by the roadside and in the towns were shut up, and seemed to be abandoned. Very few of the churches appeared to be open, many of them were pulled down, and none that were not considerably damaged; but the country was throughout in a state of high cultivation, although there was apparently a scarcity of men at work. This is to be accounted for by the encouragement which the late dearness of bread has given to the farmers, who are become, by a variety of circumstances, extremely wealthy. They are one of the very few descriptions of people who have profited by the Revolution. Very many of them have purchased lands, and this they were enabled to do almost for nothing by the depreciation of assignats, for an enormous nominal value of which they sold the produce of their farms; and this paper was received from them for the sum it represented, in payment for the estates of the ci-devant seigneurs and other confiscated property. I am told there have been repeated instances of the basest ingratitude on their part, in denouncing their landlords; and, on the contrary, that many of them have given proofs of the strongest attachment to them.
Provisions are in abundance, and at a very moderate price. Common bread is little more than two sous, and butchers' meat from five to eight sous the pound.
I have not observed any want of specie in circulation; never yet have I found any difficulty in getting change upon the purchase of any article, nor any such thing as paper money produced in such transactions. The exhausted state and the degree of distress which I could discover in this country, I must confess, fell short of the expectation which the various species of plunder, exaction, and cruelty, which it has for several years submitted to, had impressed upon my mind.
Between Calais and Paris, scarcely any troops were to be met with.
The scene being so perfectly new to me, and having little or no intercourse with any one here, except our own society, I was some time in Paris before I could form any opinion of the state of affairs, and the sentiments of the people. The streets seemed crowded, the shops tolerably well supplied, the theatres well attended, some private and a great number of public carriages to be met with; all this brought to my reflection how very difficult a matter it must be to destroy a great country, considering that all the pains which have been taken to ruin this have left so much undone. But the first fortnight we lived in the most populous part of the town, near the Palais Royal, and therefore the last place where distress would be evident.
There are few parts of Paris I have not since been in, and I find in many of them, the outlets particularly, the greatest wretchedness to prevail, and to be very thin of inhabitants. A great part of the Faubourg St. Germain, near the Boulevards, is in a great measure deserted; but this quarter was formerly inhabited principally by the noblesse. There is scarcely a street in Paris where there are not several houses written upon, Propriété nationale à vendre, and sometimes in addition, ou à louer; and in many places a great part of the street is in the same manner advertised for sale.
The names of many of the streets are, as your Lordship must know, entirely changed; but where they are not, and began with Saint, that word is invariably defaced, and the remainder of the name is left untouched. But, notwithstanding that, most places are commonly called as formerly; and this practice is becoming more general every day.
The hôtels of many of the ci-devant noblesse are inhabited by the Ministers and other members of the Government. Many of them are converted into public offices and others of them into hôtels garnis, &c.; besides, a prodigious number of them remain unoccupied, and offered for sale by the nation.