May 30. At Orleans. The country around is one universal flat, unenclosed, uninteresting, and even tedious, but the prospect from the steeple of the fine cathedral is commanding, extending over an unbounded plain, through which the magnificent Loire bends his stately way, in sight for 14 leagues.
May 31. On leaving Orleans, enter the miserable province of Sologne. The poor people who cultivate the soil here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide seed and cattle, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miserable system that perpetuates poverty and prevents instruction. The same wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are full of misery. Heaven grant me patience while I see a country thus neglected, and forgive me the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of the possessors.
June 11. See for the first time the Pyrenees, at the distance of 150 miles. Towards Cahors the country changes and has something of a savage aspect, yet houses are seen everywhere, and one-third of it under vines. The town is bad; its chief trade and resource are wines and brandies.
June 14. Reach Toulouse, which is a very large and very ancient city, but not peopled in proportion to its size. It has had a university since 1215 and has always prided itself on its taste for literature and art. The noble quay is of great length.
June 16. A ridge of hills on the other side of the Garonne, which began at Toulouse, became more and more regular yesterday; and is undoubtedly the most distant ramification of the Pyrenees, reaching into this vast vale quite to Toulouse, but no farther. Approach the mountains; the lower ones are all cultivated, but the higher ones seem covered with wood. Meet many wagons, each loaded with two casks of wine, quite backward in the carriage, and as the hind wheels are much higher than the lower ones, it shows that these mountaineers have more sense than John Bull.
The wheels of these wagons are all shod with wood instead of iron. Here for the first time, see rows of maples, with vines trained in festoons from tree to tree; they are conducted by a rope of bramble, vine cutting, or willow. They give many grapes, but bad wine. Pass St. Martino, and then a large village of well built houses, without a single glass window.
June 17. St. Gaudens is an improving town, with many new houses, something more than comfortable. An uncommon view of St. Bertrand. You break at once upon a vale sunk deep enough beneath the point of view to command every hedge and tree, with that town clustered round its large cathedral, on a rising ground. The mountains rise proudly around, and give their rough frame to this exquisite little picture. Immense quantities of poultry in all this country; most of it the people salt and keep in grease.
Quit the Garonne some leagues before Serpe, where the river Neste falls into it. The road to Bagnére is along this river, in a narrow valley, at one end of which is built the town of Luchon, the termination of our journey; which has to me been one of the most agreeable I ever undertook. Having now crossed the kingdom, and been in many French inns, I shall in general observe, that they are on an average better in two respects, and worse in all the rest, than those in England. We have lived better in point of eating and drinking beyond a question, than we should have done in going from London to the Highlands of Scotland, at double the expense.
The common cookery of the French gives great advantage. It is true they roast everything to a chip if they are not cautioned, but they give such a number and variety of dishes, that if you do not like some, there are others to please your palate. The dessert at a French inn has no rival at an English one. But you have no parlour to eat in; only a room with two, three, or four beds. Apartments badly fitted up; the walls whitewashed; or paper of different sorts in the same room; or tapestry so old as to be a fit nidus for moths and spiders; and the furniture such, that an English innkeeper would light his fire with it.
For a table you have everywhere a board laid on cross bars, which are so conveniently contrived as to leave room for your legs only at the end. Oak chairs with rush bottoms, and the back universally perpendicular, defying all idea of rest after fatigue. Doors give music as well as entrance; the wind whistles through their chinks; and hinges grate discord. Windows admit rain as well as light; when shut they are not easy to open; and when open not easy to shut.