Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/416

 378 Readings in E?iropean History it can hardly fail of succeeding. To those who have been used to travel amidst the energetic and rapid circulation of wealth, animation, and intelligence of England, it is not pos- sible to describe in words adequate to one's feelings the dull- ness and stupidity of France. I have been to-day on one of their greatest roads, within thirty miles of Paris, yet I have not seen one diligence, and met but a single gentleman's carriage, nor anything else on the road that looked like a gentleman. Feudal dues. [July I2.~ Walking up a long hill to ease my mare, I was joined by a poor woman, who complained of the times, and that it was a sad country. Demanding her reasons, she said her husband had but a morsel of land, one cow, and a poor little horse, yet they had a franchar (forty-two pounds) of wheat and three chickens to pay as a quitrent to one seig- neur ; and four franchar of oats, one chicken, and one franc to pay to another, besides very heavy tailles and other taxes. She had seven children, and the cow's milk helped to make the soup. " But why, instead of a horse, do not you keep another cow?" Oh, her husband could not carry his produce so well without a horse ; and asses are little used in the coun- try. It was said, at present, that something was to be done by some great folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how, but God send us better, car les tailles et les droits nous ecrasent. This woman, at no great distance, might have been taken for sixty or seventy, her figure was so bent and her face so furrowed and hardened by labor, but she said she was only twenty-eight. An Englishman who has not traveled cannot imagine the figure made by infinitely the greater part of the country women in France ; it speaks, at the first sight, hard and severe labor. I am inclined to think that they work harder than the men, and this, united with the more miser- able labor of bringing a new race of slaves into the world, destroys absolutely all symmetry of person and every femi- nine appearance. To what are we to attribute this difference in the manners of the lower people in the two kingdoms ? To government. . ..