"The next village we shall come to," said Mademoiselle St. Sillery, "will be a singularity. Unless we were with you, you might perhaps pass through it without seeing it. You might pass through the midst of three or four hundred inhabitants without seeing either house, man, woman, or child."
"You are speaking of Mont Louis," said Mr. Younge.
"Yes," replied Mademoiselle, "but I will not anticipate Monsieur's gratification by more fully informing him."
Mr. Younge, in the course of this conversation, gave me some important information with respect to the climate of this part of France. I have entered it in my note book as nearly as possible in his own words, and therefore shall give it as such.
"If an American, an English, or a Swedish gentleman, wished to settle in France," said he, "I would recommend above all provinces either Tourraine or the Limosin. What the country is as to natural beauty, and as to fertility of soil, you may see through every league; it is that mixture of the wild and of the cultivated, of the field, of the wood, of the vineyard, and of the garden, which is not to be equalled in Europe, and which has rendered this part of France the favourite of painters and poets from time immemorial. Here the Troubadours have built their fairy castles, have settled their magicians, and bound their ladies in enchanted gardens; and even the popular superstition of the country seems to have taken its tone and colour from the images around. Tourraine, and all the country on the banks of the Loire, has a kind of popular mythology of its own; it is the land of fairies and elfins, and there is scarcely a glen, a grove, or a shady recess, but what has its tale belonging to it. What one of the French poets has said of the Seine, may be said with more truth of the Loire—all its women are queens, and all its young men poets. If Mademoiselle St. Sillery were speaking," continued he, smiling at this young lady, "she would say, that love reigned triumphant amidst the charms of Nature.
"The climate exactly corresponds to this singular beauty of the country. In many years there is no such thing as snow, and frosts are not frequent, and never severe. The rainy weather comes usually at once, and is confined to the spring. There are no fogs and vapours as is usual in the northern kingdom: the spring is a continuance of such weather as is seen in England about the middle of May. The harvest begins about the latter end of June, but is sometimes so late as the middle of July; it continues a month. The vent de bize is very rare in these provinces. The great heats are from the middle of July to the middle of August During this time, the climate of Touraine certainly exceeds any thing that is common in England. The heaths are covered with thyme, lavender, rosemary, and the juniper-tree: nothing can be more delightful than the scent of them, when the wind blows over them. The hedges are every where interspersed with flowers; there are blossoms of some kind or other throughout the year. I must not, however, disguise from you, that there are some drawbacks from this excellence: the countries south of the Loire are subject to violent storms of rain and hail, and the latter particularly is occasionally so violent, as to beat down and destroy all the corn and vintage on which it may fall. These hail-storms, however, at least in this excessive degree, are not very frequent; they sometimes do not occur once in five years. Some years ago, they were more frequent than they are at present: they used to come on at that time with a violence which swept every thing before them, even destroying the cattle, and it is said that even men have been killed by these hail-stones. Such storms, however, are now considered as natural phenomena.
"The plenty of these provinces, I speak of Touraine and Anjou, is such as might be expected from their climate, and the fertility of the soil. I am persuaded, that a family or an individual might live at one-fourth of the expence which it would cost them either in England or in America. Bread is cheaper by two-thirds, and meat of all kinds is about one-fourth of the London market. Land, both in rent and purchase, is likewise infinitely cheaper than in England, and if managed with any skill, would replace its purchase-money in seven years. The French farmers, for want of capital, leave half their land totally uncultivated, and the other half is most scandalously neglected. An English farmer would instantaneously double or quadruple the produce of the province. The government, moreover, admits foreigners of any country as denizens, under the condition that they shall apply themselves to agriculture or manufactures. I am not, however, certain that agriculture is included in this permission, but I am inclined to believe that it is comprehended in it. Of one thing I am sure, that the government would not refuse its protection, and if required, its special licence, to any foreign agriculturist, who should be desirous of purchasing and settling."
In this and similar conversation we reached Mont Louis, and it exactly answered the description which the ladles had given of it. We were in the midst of the village and its inhabitants before we saw it. Imagine a number of sandy hills on each side of the road, and the sides of them scooped out into houses or rather caves, and you have a sufficient idea of this French village, containing some hundreds of inhabitants. The hills being hollowed out on the further extremity from the road, a traveller might certainly pass through it, without perceiving any thing of it. This style is even carried where there is not the same natural advantage of a hill to hollow out. The village extends into the plain, which is likewise dug out into subterraneous houses, and which are only visible by the smoke issuing from the chimnies. I could not understand the convenience or necessity for these kind of habitations. The ground, indeed, being chalky, is at once dry and easily dug, but on the other hand, the country so abounds in wood and clay, that a very little industry, and a very little expence, might have provided these living human beings with something better than a grave. Mademoiselle St. Sillery, however, made a remark which I must not pass over. "You must not," said this lady, "necessarily infer the misery of our peasantry, because you see them in such unfit habitations. When you compare the French poor, with the poor in your own country, you must take all circumstances with you. When you see the French peasantry so ill lodged, and so scantily clad, you must bring into your view at the same time the difference of the climate. Here, the same sun which now shines upon us, shines on us the whole year round; our rains are short, and all confined to their season; we know nothing of the northern damps: a piece of muslin or fine linen hung in one of those caves for six months, would be dry and unsullied when removed. Those caves, moreover, bad as they are, belong to their inhabitants; the property is their own. Can your peasantry say the same? Believe me, Monsieur, there are many very happy, aye and very lovely faces, under those turf dwellings."
We reached Amboise in good time, and as we intended leaving it on the following morning, Mr. Younge and myself walked over the town, in the interval between dinner and tea. The ladies reserved themselves for the promenade, which in the provincial towns usually begins at seven, and continues till nine.
Amboise, like all the towns on the Loire, is very pleasantly situated, but has nothing in its structure to recommend it to particular notice. It consists of two streets and a chateau. Before the Revolution it was very singularly divided into two parishes and two churches: all gentlemen, all military officers, all landed proprietors who possessed honorary fiefs, and all strangers who were temporary residents, were considered as belonging to one parish, and the people and the bourgeois were attached to the other. The Revolution has annihilated these absurd distinctions, and every one now belongs to the parish in which he resides, or has property.