Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/414

 376 Readings i?i European History hardly believe my own eyes. A succession of many well- built, tight, and comfortable farming cottages, built of stone and covered with tiles; each having its little garden, inclosed by clipped thorn hedges, with plenty of peach and other fruit trees, some fine oaks scattered in the hedges, and young trees nursed up with so much care that nothing but the fos- tering attention of the owner could effect anything like it. To every house belongs a farm, perfectly well inclosed, with grass borders mown and neatly kept around the cornfields, with gates to pass from one inclosure to another. The men are all dressed with red caps, like the highlanders of Scot- land. There are some parts of England (where small yeo- men still remain) that resemble this country of Beam ; but we have very little that is equal to what I have seen in this ride of twelve miles from Pau to Moneng. It is all in the hands of little proprietors, without the farms being so small as to occasion a vicious and miserable population. An air of neatness, warmth, and comfort breathes over the whole. It is visible in their new-built houses and stables, in their little gardens, in their hedges, in the courts before their doors, even in the coops for their poultry and the sties for their hogs. A peasant does not think of rendering his pig com- fortable if his own happiness hangs by the thread of a nine years' lease. We are now in Be'arn, within a few miles of the cradle of Henry IV. Do they inherit these blessings from that good prince? The benignant genius of that good monarch seems to reign still over the country ; each peasant has the fowl in the pot. . . . The ijth.~ The agreeable scene of yesterday continues : many small properties, and every appearance of rural happi- ness. In September, 1788, Young found himself in Brittany. Brittany. To Combourg. The country has a savage aspect ; hus- bandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, than among the Hurons, which appears incredible amidst inci- sures. The people almost as wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal, filthy places that