Amiens is still a very cheap town for permanent residence, though the war has very seriously affected it. A good house may be rented for thirty pounds per annum, the taxes upon the mere house being about a Louis. Mutton seldom exceeds threepence English money per pound, and beef is usually somewhat cheaper. Poultry of all kinds is in great plenty, and cheap: fowls, ducks, &c. about two shillings per couple. A horse at livery, half a Louis per week; two horses, all expences included, a Louis and two livres. Board and lodging in a genteel house, five-and-twenty Louis annually. Dr. M—— agreed with me, that for three hundred a year, a family might keep their carriage and live in comfort, in Amiens and its neighbourhood. I must not forget another observation; the towns in France are cheaper than the villages. The consumption of meat in the latter is not sufficient to induce the butchers to kill often; the market, therefore, is very ill supplied, and consequently the prices are dear. A few miles from a principal town, you cannot have a leg of mutton without paying for the whole sheep.
A stranger may live at an inn at Amiens for about five shillings, English money, a day. The wine is good, and very cheap; and a daily ordinary, or table d'hôte, is kept at the Hotel d'Angleterre. Breakfast is charged one livre, dinner three, and supper one: half a livre for coffee, and two livres for lodging; but if you remain a week, ten livres for the whole time. The hotels, of which there are two, are as good as those of Paris, and lodgings are far more reasonable. A restaurateur has very lately set up in a very grand style, but the population of the town will scarcely support him. The company at the table d'hôte usually consists of officers, of whom there is always a multitude in the neighbourhood of Amiens. Some of them, as I was informed, are very pleasant agreeable men; whilst others are ruffians, and have the manners of jacobins.
[CHAP. VIII.]
French and English Roads compared—Gaiety of French
Labourers—Breteuil—Apple-trees in the midst of Corn-fields—Beautiful
Scenery—Cheap Price of Land in France—Clermont—Bad Management
of the French Farmers—Chantilly—Arrival at Paris.
I left Amiens early on the following morning, intending to reach Clermont in good time.
The roads now became very indifferent, but the scenery was much improved. I could not but compare the prospect of a French road with one of the great roads of England. It is impossible to travel a mile on an English road without meeting or overtaking every species of vehicle. The imagination of a traveller, if as susceptible as a traveller's imagination should be, has thus a constant food for its exercise; it accompanies these several groups to their home or destination, and calls before its view the busy market, the quiet village, the blazing hearth, the returning husband, and the welcoming wife. No man is fit for a traveller who cannot while away his time in such creations of his fancy. I pity the traveller from my heart, who in a barren or uniform road, has no other occupation but to count the mile-stones, and find every mile as long as the three preceding. Let such men become drivers to stage-coaches, but let them not degrade the name of travellers by assuming it to themselves.
On a French road, there is more necessity than objects for this exercise of the imagination. A French road is like a garden in the old French style. It is seldom either more or less than a straight line ruled from one end of the kingdom to the other. There are no angles, no curvatures, no hedges; one league is the exact counterpart of another; instead of hedges, are railings, and which are generally in a condition to give the country not only a naked, but even a slovenly, ruinous appearance. Imagine a road made over an heath, and each side of it fenced off by a railing of old hurdles, and you will have no imperfect idea of a French great road. Within a mile, indeed, of the neighbourhood of a principal town, the prospect usually varies and improves. The road is then planted on each side, and becomes a beautiful avenue through lofty and shady trees. This description, however, will only apply to the great roads. Some of the cross and country roads, as I shall hereafter have occasion to mention, not only equal, but greatly exceed, even the English roads, in natural beauty and scenery.
In the course of the road between Amiens and Clermont, I had again too frequent opportunity to remark the slovenly management of the French farmers, as compared with those of England, and even with those of America. In America, the farmers are not without a very sufficient excuse. The scarcity of hands, the impossibility of procuring labourers at any price, compel an American farmer to get in his harvest as he can, to collect the crop of one field hastily, and then fly to another. In France there is no such excuse, and therefore there should be no such slovenly waste. Yet in some of the hay-fields which I passed, at least one-fifth of the crop was lying scattered on the roads and in the fields. The excuse was, that the cattle would eat it, and that they might as well have it one way as another. It would be folly to say any thing as to such an argument; yet in these very fields the labour was so plentiful and minute, that the greater part of the crop was carried from the fields on the shoulders of the labourers, men, women, and boys. It is difficult to reconcile such inconsistencies.
In such of the fields as I saw carts, the most severe labour seemed to be allotted to the share of the women. They were the pitchers, and performed this labour with a very heavy, and as it appeared to me, a very awkward fork. Whilst the women were performing this task, two or three fellows, raw-boned, and nearly six feet high, were either very leisurely raking, or perhaps laying at their full length under the new-made stacks. In other fields I saw more pleasing groups. At the sound of a horn like the English harvest horn, the pitchers, the loaders, and every labourer on the spot, left their work, and collected around some tree or hay-cock, to receive their noon refreshment. The indispensable fiddle was never wanting. Even the horses, loosened from the carts, and suffered to feed at liberty, seemed to partake in the general merriment, and looked with erect ears at the fiddler and his dancing group. When, the hour allotted to this relaxation expired, the labourers were again called to the several duties by the summons of the same horn, which was now sounded from the top of the loaded cart, as it had before been sounded under the tree or hay-cock. I had forgotten to mention, that the tree or hay-cock, the appointed place of refreshment, was distinguished by pennants of different coloured ribbons attached to a stick as a flag-staff, and which waving in the wind, under a beautiful midsummer sky, had an effect peculiarly pleasing. As I saw the same spectacle in several fields, I believe it to be national.