France in eighteen hundred and two

After all our arrangements had been concluded we proceeded on the route towards Paris.

We were forcibly struck by the backward state of the vegetation in the Department of Calais, and we compared the poverty of the exhausted soil with the luxuriant richness of the county of Kent this early spring.

Over the service of vast unenclosed tracts of land we perceived scarcely any but women employed in culture of the earth.

The implements of village husbandry, as well as the cattle, were the worst I ever beheld, and the population did not seem in any way adequate to the extent of the country. Wherever any vestiges of religion or aristocracy remained we traced the ravages of the Revolution. Monasteries and churches were heaps of ruins; if a church had escaped the general wreck, an inscription over its portal, “This is the Temple of Reason and Truth,” denoted that it had been abused for atheistical purposes.

In every village through which we passed crowds of children, women and old men pressed upon us, begging charity and bread. I inquired into the causes of this melancholy spectacle. My informer pointed to a monastery in ruins, and shook his head. I felt the force of this explanation.

The agreeable seaport of Boulogne presented itself before us. When we reached the gates I asked whether Parker was alive.

I heard he still kept the same hotel where I slept in 1792.

When we reached it I found him grown grey, however, with suffering and persecution. He received me with unfeigned pleasure, few Englishmen had hitherto passed, and the sight of a countryman rejoiced his heart. He told me that during the time of Terror, Dounne,[1] the Conventional Deputy, took up his quarters in his hotel, and fared sumptuously upon the fat of the land. In a very short time this representative of the people contrived to absorb a vast quantity of wine, particularly port, for which he had a great relish, and for none of this did he ever pay one farthing.

One day after dinner he sent for Parker and inquired whether he had any more port. The latter replied that unfortunately his stock was exhausted. At this the Citizen Deputy expressed great regret. Two hours later, he ordered, in consequence, poor Parker into arrest, and sent him to a prison in Paris, without permitting him to make any arrangements respecting his family concerns, or even to take leave of his family.

He remained eighteen months in jail, cut off from his friends and relations, while his house and property were completely at the mercy of the Jacobins.

He has now returned to try his fortune once more at Boulogne, and I sincerely hope English travellers will encourage a countryman, who is highly deserving of their patronage.

I traversed after dinner several streets of the town. I found a great number of private houses, convents and monasteries utterly demolished and reduced to piles of ruins, giving the town the appearance of having experienced a long and severe siege. I thought (for I forgot for a moment the enlightened age of Reason) that all this devastation was the result of the late bombardment of Lord Nelson. But I was in error. Only one bomb fell into the town, and did no mischief.

The ruins everywhere visible were formerly the habitations of suspected persons and religious and charitable foundations destroyed by the Jacobins, when they overthrew what they were pleased to call prejudice and superstition. Some of these buildings were remarkably handsome, and it might have been supposed could have served for the use of the public, but when the waters of bitterness overflow, destruction is general and indiscriminate.

During the bombardment of the town, the French naval officers, among whom was Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the First Consul, messed every day at Parker’s. In contradistinction to the Deputy of the Convention, they conducted themselves with the greatest liberality to this Englishman during their residence.

Jerome put up at Parker’s by the express desire of his elder brother. The inhabitants and the French officers scouted the idea of a French invasion of England, and wondered that the bravest and most distinguished admiral of the British Fleet should have been sent to oppose an inconsiderable flotilla moored in Boulogne waters.

“Your countrymen,” they said, “are very brave, but you are a mercantile nation, and merchants are always nervous. This town, as well as Calais and Dunkerque were, before the war, filled by English refugees, persons who sought shelter from the pursuit of their creditors.”

Considering the extraordinary severity of the English law of debtor and creditor, I cannot avoid looking upon these with some slight approbation, as affording to the unfortunate and improvident the means of becoming careful and honest! and more advantageous resorts for the debtor than the wood of America among rattlesnakes and savages.

So far, since the Peace, few persons of this description have arrived at Boulogne, though many are expected.

To give any account of the present state of commerce here is quite out of my power. I doubt if the town can be said to possess any. Formerly the fishing was prosperous, and much shipbuilding was undertaken and a smart smuggler’s trade carried on with the seaports on the opposite side of the water.

It had been my intention to have slept at Montreuil-sur-Mer, a distance of four posts or about twenty-three miles from Boulogne, but my companion was so exhausted that we settled to pass the night at Samur, the nearest post town. Although we were obliged to lodge at a miserable inn, nothing could exceed the kind attention of the people who owned it, they had but milk and coffee to give us, which were but slender supports for persons just recovered from sea-sickness, and seven hours had elapsed since dinner. However, as we had provided ourselves at Calais with a fowl and two bottles of burgundy we were thus enabled to make an excellent supper; the milk and coffee I poured into a bowl and gave with a big French roll to a miserable creature at the gate. The manner in which they were received and devoured absolutely confounded me, for I had never seen the like in old France.

The next day we proceeded to Cormont, about five miles and a half, where we changed horses, and from thence to Montreuil, situated on a steep mountain and formerly a strong fortress.

Before the Revolution there was here an English convent, and a number of English families, but the convent has been demolished, and the town altogether abandoned by our people.

I entered into a political dialogue with two very respectable persons whom I found at the inn, and asked them what was their opinion of the Peace and their present Government. They expressed themselves content with both. They observed that no man who had witnessed such scenes as they had done could avoid rejoicing at an event which promised repose to France.

The blood which had been spilt within and without their country had sickened the French people with the very name of war. Then followed the old and trite remark, that if England and France could join in a cordial union they might command the whole world and retain it in a state of permanent peace. In their opinion the Peace was in favour of England, and when I enumerated the names of the different colonies we had restored to France they laughed at me and said, “You have taken away our commerce, and what have we taken from you?”

They expressed themselves satisfied with the present Government, and avowed that any Government which maintained order was preferable to a state of anarchy. They assured me that they had witnessed scenes which could not be described. They said, “We lived in times when no man could trust his neighbour, much less speak his thoughts. A brother could not confide in a brother.” Then I observed, “You have doubtless had the guillotine permanent in your town?” “No, sir, it has never been erected here, but many of our fellow townsmen were imprisoned and executed at Arras.” “By Joseph Le Bon?” “The same.” “What induced your people to destroy the Convent?” “With many fear of death, with others because it was the fashion.” While we were engaged in conversation, a person brought in a hare and a leveret, for which our hostess paid ten sous. On my observing that provisions must, to judge from this price, be extremely cheap in France, it was quickly proved to me that any articles of necessity were inordinately dear; bread I found was a halfpenny a pound dearer than in England. Our horses being now harnessed, or rather corded, we took our leave, but we had literally to penetrate through a column of beggars before we mounted the carriage. They were mostly boys between fourteen and seventeen years of age, and their number was three-and-twenty. I requested the person with whom I had been conversing to explain why at eleven o’clock in the morning these lads were not at work. He answered that they had no work, and were in an utter state of indigence, their parents not having the means of providing them with subsistence. On which I observed that they might find ample occupation in the pursuits of agriculture and husbandry, and asked if it was not highly injurious to the community to suffer their boys not to be brought up to a trade. He then whispered that while the Noblesse resided in the country, and the Monasteries existed, vast numbers found employment, and those who were out of a place were assisted by a charity of the religious orders, but that since their destruction, the land had devolved in other hands, and often to proprietors who were in Paris and never lived on their estate. “It is evident,” said I, “that these poor people are punished for their folly.” A fact he fully admitted. He mentioned that the parents of these children were the persons now employed in the business of agriculture, and that as for trades all those who were not requisitioned for the armies were only too glad for the sake of bread to serve different tradesmen and perform the duties formerly fulfilled by boys, but, he added, “all in good time. These lads will be in the next conscription, and then they will be provided for.” I thanked him for his description, and after distributing a little money among these children, I resumed my journey, pondering on the reversed order of social life.

The Revolution, which was brought about ostensibly for the benefit of the lower classes of society, has sunk them to a degree of degradation and misfortune to which they never were reduced under the ancient monarchy. They have been disinherited, stripped and deprived of every resource for existence, except defeats of arms and the fleeting spoil of vanquished nations. In the sententious language of Montesquieu, “With an hundred thousand arms they have overthrown everything, while with an hundred thousand feet they have crawled like insects.” This reversion of social order must destroy sentiments of moral obligation.

Boys of fifteen beg for charity while their fathers and mothers toil in the field! Full-grown men are engaged in avocations peculiar to youth. A life of habitual indolence is encouraged in those who should be toiling for those who gave them birth. From this they will shortly be transplanted to the armies, without having been taught one occupation by which they might obtain a livelihood when the period of service has expired.

What is to be expected of such young men on their return as citizens? They will be a dead stock on the community—a load on their friends, an incumbrance to themselves, they who have been taught no other trade but to handle a firelock, to parade and plunder—will merely be the terror of peaceful citizens, and the Government will find the only mode of disposing of them to send them back to the army.

Thus an immense permanent military establishment will result, and will consist of an army which is the reservoir of the indolent and profligate, who must be supported by the speculations of the merchant and the labours of the farmer. This is in itself far more pernicious than the corvées, the abolishment of which was one of the pleas for the extirpation of the aristocracy.

To foreign nations the possession by France of such an immense force ready to burst upon them at a single word of command must be an object of terror and alarm. And in self-defence they too must maintain powerful armies in the centre of Europe, in the midst of a profound and general peace.

If an estimate is made of the many hundred thousand hands thus withdrawn from the pursuits of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, some idea may be formed of the loss which huge standing armies cause to the community at large.

Such arguments are, however, vain while the vast military establishment of France is upheld.

Necessity compels every nation in Europe to provide for its own security. The military force of France is justly pleaded as a reason for maintaining a strong standing army in our island. How much more reason have continental nations to adopt a similar precaution, for they do not possess our advantage of being separated from France by a ditch? A man who proposed the reduction of the English army at the present time would be esteemed a madman. The continental powers are only pursuing a system forced upon them by imperious necessity.

Nevertheless, much is to be hoped from the versatile and ingenious character of the French people. A Frenchman can turn himself to occupations which would never enter the brain of an Englishman or German, and it is a common adage that if a Frenchman be turned adrift and penniless on the wide world he will thrive and prosper.

If the situation of the nations on the continent be contrasted with that of our happy country, we shall perceive that Great Britain enjoys a decided advantage. All our soldiers and most of our sailors, before their entrance into the Navy or Army, have been previously educated to some industrial pursuit. Hence after a long war they rejoice in returning to their former pursuits, and the country has nothing to apprehend from them. They resume their former relations to society, and every species of trade and manufacture is open to them.

The present Government should seriously reflect upon these undoubted facts if the First Consul is sincerely desirous of peace.

These reflections have led me out of my road to Nampont (a post and a half from Montreuil). Here we changed horses and proceeded to Bernay, where we again changed.

The weather was favourable and we hastened on, hoping to reach Amiens before dark. Nouviou was our next stage, whence we traversed a flat and unpleasant tract of country to Abbeville.

We passed a pretty château surrounded by trees. It belonged to a Monsieur de St. Quentin, who, having emigrated, found himself deprived of his property, which was purchased for a trifling sum from the Republican Government by a merchant of Abbeville.

Since the proscription of emigrants has been removed by the First Consul, Monsieur de St. Quentin has returned to France. He now resides at a little village, formerly belonging to him, within sight of the mansion which was once his. None of his property has been restored to him, and no allowance so far granted by the State, he therefore lives in a forlorn state of poverty. Our postillion had lived twelve years with M. de St. Quentin in the capacity of a gardener. He pointed to a young plantation and said, sadly, “All those trees were planted by me.”

Love of country must be a predominant passion in the mind of a man who after twelve years’ exile is content to reside in it in penury, and endure the mortification of being constantly within view of his former property. We dined at Reichord’s hotel, were well entertained, and the charges reasonable. But our meal was rendered uncomfortable on account of the crowd of beggars who were looking through the window and craving charity. As fast as one crowd was dismissed another advanced upon their heels. A gentleman who was there declared he counted over a hundred persons. The city of Abbeville is old and wretchedly built, many of the houses being made of wood there is a gloomy aspect in every part of it. Before the Revolution it was celebrated for its damasks, and the vast establishment of Vau Robois, established by Louis XIV., gave employment to over 4000 persons; but this industry perished in the Revolution. Before the war the population of Abbeville was computed at 22,000, it is now reduced to less than 18,000 souls.

Ally-le-haut Clocher was our next stopping-place—the only circumstance worthy of notice there was a red cap on the top of the church steeple, a mark of Jacobinism; during the nine miles traversed between Abbeville and this place we never remarked one cheerful prospect or one well cultivated lot of ground. At Flixecourt stood a tree of Liberty, the first we had noticed since our arrival in France. From this place we proceeded to Picquigny, where we again changed horses and thence to Amiens, a stage of nine miles. It was late when we arrived, and to our misfortune (as you will learn later) I mistook the house to which I had been recommended. By the light of the lantern I read Pollet instead of La Poste, and in consequence drove to Madame Pollet’s inn, “Le Lion d’Or.”

Before I close this letter I will make a few observations on the general face of the country and the state of agriculture. The soil is good, but cultivation is deplorable.

There are scarcely any enclosures, trees have been ruthlessly cut down, and the hills completely stripped of timber. I saw neither cattle nor sheep pasturing.

Nothing can exceed the wretchedness of the implements of husbandry employed but the wretched appearance of the persons using them. Women at the plough and young girls driving a team give but an indifferent idea of the progress of agriculture under the Republic. There are no farmhouses dispersed over the fields. The farmers reside together in remote villages, a circumstance calculated to retard the business of cultivation. The interiors of the houses are filthy, the farmyards in the utmost disorder, and the miserable condition of the cattle sufficiently bespeaks the poverty of their owner. Meat of all kinds is poor and unnutritious, but the poultry is excellent. The wine is sour and worse than vinegar and water, and even in the great inns where I paid a high price for so-called burgundy and bordeaux, I never drank one glass of even tolerable wine (Chantilly excepted) between Calais and the capital.

Between Montreuil and Flixecourt we were greatly diverted at the sight of two women ploughing with three asses, although this confirms the opinion upon which I have always insisted, but not ludicrously, that if we in England made more use of asses in husbandry advantage might be derived to the community and a saving to the farmer. If instead of harassing and ill-treating these useful animals we gave them a little more consequence in the society of brutes and raised them from the condition of slaves to servants, they would possess more spirit and energy and be more tractable.

The asses at the plough looked plump and sleek and performed their work apparently as well as horses. After having seen a goat at the plough I think no one should be surprised that I plead the cause of the poor ass, besides I acknowledge myself to be the friend of asses.