miles, which is its leaft extent. They fay the capitainerie, or paramountship, is above 100 miles in circumference. That is to fay, all the inhabitants for that extent are pestered with game, without permiffion to destroy it, in order to give one man diverfion. Ought not thefe capitaineries to be extirpated?

At Luzarch, I found that my mare, from illness, would travel no further; French ftables, which are covered dung-hills, and the carelessness of garçons d'ecuries, an execrable fet of vermin, had given her cold. I therefore left her to fend for from Paris, and went thither poft; by which experiment I found that pofting in France is much worse, and even, upon the whole, dearer than in England. Being in a post-chaise I travelled to Paris, as other travellers in poft-chaises do, that is to fay, knowing little or nothing. The last ten miles I was eagerly on the watch for that throng of carriages which near London impede the traveller. I watched in vain; for the road, quite to the gates, is, on comparison, a perfect desert. So many great roads join here, that I fuppose this must be accidental. The entrance has nothing magnificent; ill built and dirty. To get to the Rue de Varenne Fauxbourg St. Germain, I had the whole city to croís, and paffed it by narrow, ugly, and crouded streets.

At the hotel de la Rochefoucauld I found the Duke of Liancourt and his fons, the Count de la Rochefoucauld, and the Count Alexander, with my excellent friend Monfieur de Lazowski, all of whom I had the pleasure of knowing in Suffolk. They introduced me to the Duchefs D'Eftiffac, mother of the Duke of Liancourt, and to the Duchefs of Liancourt. The agreeable reception and friendly attentions I met with from all this liberal family were well calculated to give me the most favourable impreffion *

**

*

*

-42 miles. The 26th. So fhort a time had I paffed before in France, that the scene is totally new to me. Till we have been accustomed to travelling, we have a propensity to ftare at and admire every thing-and to be on the fearch for novelty, even in circumftances in which it is ridiculous to look for it. I have been upon the full filly gape to find out things that I had not found before, as if a ftreet in Paris could be compofed of any thing but houses, or houfes formed of any thing but brick or ftone-or that the people in them, not being English, would be walking on their heads. I fhall fhake of this folly as faft as I can, and bend my attention to mark the character and difpofition of the nation. Such views naturally lead us to catch the little circumftances which fometimes exprefs them; not an easy tafk, but fubject to many errors.

I have only one day to pafs at Paris, and that is taken up with buying neceffaries. At Calais, my abundant care produced the inconvenience it was meant to avoid; I was afraid of lofing my trunk, by leaving it at Deffein's for the diligence; fo I fent it to M. Mouron's.-The confequence is, that it is not to be found at Paris, and its contents are to be bought again before I can leave this

city on our journey to the Pyrenees. I believe it may be received as a maxim, that a traveller fhould always truft his baggage to the common voitures of the country, without any extraordinary precautions.

After a rapid excurfion, with my friend Lazowski, to fee many things, but too hastily to form any correct idea, fpend the evening at his brother's, where I had the pleasure of meeting Monf. de Brouffonet, fecretary of the Royal Society of Agriculture, and Monf. Defmarets, both of the Academy of Sciences. As Monf. Lazowski is well informed in the manufactures of France, in the police of which he enjoys a poft of confideration, and as the other gentlemen have paid much attention to agriculture, the converfation was in no flight degree instructive, and I regretted that a very early departure from Paris would not let me promise myself a further enjoyment fo congenial with my feelings, as the company of men, whofe converfation fhewed a marked attention to objects of national importance. On the breaking up of the party, went with count Alexander de la Rochefoucauld poft to Verfailles, to be prefent at the fête of the day following; (whitfunday) flept at the duke de Liancourt's hotel.

The 27th. Breakfafted with him at his apartments in the palace, which are annexed to his office of grand mafter of the wardrobe, one of the principal in the court of France.-Here I found the duke furrounded by a circle of noblemen, among whom was the duke de la Rochefoucauld, well known for his attention to natural history; I was introduced to him, as he is going to Bagnere de Luchon in the Pyrenees, where I am to have the honour of being in his party.

The ceremony of the day was, the King's investing the Duke of Berri, son of the count D'Artois, with the cordon blue. The Queen's band was in the chapel where the ceremony was performed, but the mufical effect was thin and weak. During the fervice the King was feated between his two brothers, and feemed by his carriage and inattention to wish himself a hunting. He would certainly have been as well employed, as in hearing afterwards from his throne a feudal oath of chivalry, I fuppofe, or fome fuch nonsense, administered to a boy of ten years old. Seeing fo much pompous folly I imagined it was the dauphin, and asked a lady of fashion near me; at which she laughed in my face, as if I had been guilty of the most egregious idiotism: nothing could be done in a worse manner; for the ftifling of her expreffion only marked it the more. I applied to Monf. de la Rochefoucauld to learn what grofs abfurdity I had been guilty of fo unwittingly; when, forfooth, it was because the dauphin, as all the world knows in France, has the cordon blue put around him as foon as he is born. So unpardonable was it for a foreigner to be ignorant of such an important part of French hiftory, as that of giving a babe a blue flobbering bib instead of a white one!

After this ceremony was finished, the King and the knights walked in a fort of proceffion to a small apartment in which he dined, faluting the Queen as they paffed. There appeared to be more eafe and familiarity than form in this part of the ceremony; her majefty, who, by the way, is the most beautiful woman I faw to-day, received them with a variety of expreffion. On fome fhe fmiled; to others fhe talked; a few seemed to have the honour of being more in her intimacy. Her return to fome was formal, and to others diftant. To the gallant Suffrein it was, refpectful and benign. The ceremony of the King's dining in public is more odd than fplendid. The Queen fat by him with a cover before her, but ate nothing; converfing with the duke of Orleans, and the duke of Liancourt, who ftood behind her chair. To me it would have been a moft uncomfortable meal, and were I a fovereign, I would fweep away three-fourths of thefe ftupid forms; if Kings do not dine like other people, they lofe much of the pleasure of life; their station is very well calculated to deprive them of much, and they fubmit to nonfenfical cuftoms, the fole tendency of which is to leffen the remainder. The only comfortable or amufing dinner is a table of ten or twelve covers for the people whom they like; travellers tell us that this was the mode of the late King of Pruffia, who knew the value of life too well to facrifice it to empty forms on the one hand, or to a monastic reserve on the other. The palace of Verfailles, one of the objects of which report had given me the greatest expectation, is not in the leaft ftriking: I view it without emotion: the impreffion it makes is nothing. What can compenfate the want of unity? From whatever point viewed, it appears an assemblage of buildings; a fplendid quarter of a town, but not a fine edifice; an objection from which the garden front is not free, though by far the most beautiful.-The great gallery is the finest room I have feen; the other apartments are nothing; but the pictures and ftatues are well known to be a capital collection. The whole palace, except the chapel, feems to be open to all the world; we pushed through an amazing croud of all forts of people to fee the proceffion, many of them not very well dressed, whence it appears, that no questions are asked. But the officers at the door of the apartment in which the King dined, made a diftinction, and would not permit all to enter promiscuously.

Travellers speak much, even very late ones, of the remarkable interest the French take in all that perfonally concerns their King, fhewing by the eagerness of their attention not curiofity only, but love. Where, how, and in whom thofe gentlemen difcovered this I know not.-It is either mifrepresentation, or the people are changed in a few years more than is credible. Dine at Paris, and in the evening the dutchess of Liancourt, who seems to be one of the best of women, carried me to the opera at St. Cloud, where alfo we viewed the palace

which the Queen is building; it is large, but there is much in the front that does not please me.-20 miles.

The 28th. Finding my mare fufficiently recovered for a journey, a point of importance to a traveller fo weak in cavalry as myself, I left Paris, accompanying the count de la Rochefoucauld and my friend Lazowski, and commencing a journey that is to cross the whole kingdom to the Pyrenees. The road to Orleans is one of the greatest that leads from Paris, I expected, therefore, to have my former impreffion of the little traffic near that city removed; but on the contrary it was confirmed; it is a defert compared with those around London. In ten miles we met not one stage or diligence; only two meffageries, and very few chaises; not a tenth of what would have been met had we been leaving London at the fame hour. Knowing how great, rich, and important a city Paris is, this circumstance perplexes me much. Should it afterwards be confirmed, conclufions in abundance are to be drawn.

For a few miles, the scene is every where scattered with the fhafts of quarries, the stone drawn up by lanthorn wheels of a great diameter. The country diverfified; and its greatest want to please the eye is a river; woods generally in view; the proportion of the French territory covered by this production for want of coals, must be prodigious, for it has been the fame all the way from Calais. At Arpajon, the maréchal duke de Mouchy has a small house, which has nothing to recommend it.-20 miles.

The 29th. To Eftamps is partly through a flat country, the beginning of the famous Pays de Beauce. To Toury, flat and difagreeable, only two or three gentlemen's feats in fight.31 miles.

The 30th. One univerfal flat, uninclosed, uninterefting, and even tedious, though small towns and villages are every where in fight; the features that might compound a landscape are not brought together. This Pays de Beauce contains, by reputation, the cream of French husbandry; the foil excellent; but the management all fallow. Pafs through part of the foreft of Orleans belonging to the duke of that name: it is one of the largest in France.

From the steeple of the cathedral at Orleans, the profpect is very fine. The town large, and its fuburbs, of fingle ftreets, extend near a league. The vaft range of country, that spreads on every fide, is an unbounded plain, through which the magnificent Loire bends his ftately way, in fight for 14 leagues; the whole scattered with rich meadows, vineyards, gardens, and forefts. The population must be very great; for, befide the city, which contains near 40,000 people, the number of fmaller towns and villages ftrewed thickly over the plain is fuch as to render the whole fcene animated. The cathedral, from which we had this noble profpect is a fine building, the choir raifed by Henry IV. The new church is a pleafing edifice; the bridge a noble ftructure of ftone, and the C 2 first

first experiment of the flat arch made in France, where it is now so fashionable. It contains nine, and is 410 yards long, and 45 feet wide. To hear fome Englishmen talk, one would fuppofe there was not a fine bridge in all France; not the firft, nor the laft error I hope that travelling will remove. There are many barges and boats at the quay, built upon the river in the Bourbonnois, &c. loaded with wood, brandy, wine, and other goods; on arriving at Nantes, the veffels are broken up and fold with the cargo. Great numbers built with fpruce fir. A boat goes from hence to that city, when demanded by fix paffengers, each paying a louis-d'or: they lie on fhore every night, and reach Nantes in four days and an half. The principal street leading to the bridge is a fine one all bufy and alive, for trade is brifk here. Admire the fine acacias scattered about the town. 20 miles.

The 31st. On leaving it, enter foon the miferable province of Sologne, which the French writers call the trifte Sologne. Through all this country they have had fevere fpring frofts, for the leaves of the walnuts are black and cut off. I fhould not have expected this unequivocal mark of a bad climate after paffing the Loire. To La Ferté Lowendahl, a dead flat of hungry fandy gravel, with much heath. The poor people, who cultivate the foil here, are metayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and feed, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miferable system, that perpetuates poverty and excludes inftruction. Meet a man employed on the roads who was prifoner at Falmouth four years; he does not seem to have any rancour against the English; nor yet was he very well pleafed with his treatment. At La Ferté is a handsome chateau of the marquis de Coix, with feveral canals, and a great command of water. To Nonant-le-Fuzelier, a strange mixture of fand and water. Much inclofed, and the houfes and cottages of wood filled between the ftuds with clay or bricks, and covered not with flate but tile, with fome barns boarded like thofe in Suffolk-rows of pollards in fome of the hedges; an excellent road of fand; the general features of a woodland country; all combined to give a strong resemblance to many parts of England; but the husbandry is fo little like that of England, that the least attention to it deftroyed every notion of fimilarity. 27 miles.

JUNE 1. The fame wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are fcenes of pitiable management, as the houses are of mifery. Yet all this country highly improveable, if they knew what to do with it: the property, perhaps, of fome of thofe glittering beings, who figured in the proceffion the other day at Verfailles. Heaven grant me patience while I fee a country thus neglected— and forgive me the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of the poffeffors.— Enter the generality of Bourges, and foon after a foreft of oak belonging to the count d'Artois; the trees are dying at top, before they attain any fize. There

the