pable, under the influence of their impetuous ardour. The French, beyond all people, are the creatures of society; by it their manners and sentiments are fashioned, and in it are centred their chief pleasures and gratifications. They would excel all nations in the art of conversation, were not the desire of shining too universal.

The circumstances which most strike the English on arriving in France, are the strange variety of dress; the narrowness of the streets, and the inequality of the houses, some being fine stone buildings, and others mean and oldfashioned. The traveller is displeased at the general want of cleanliness, and at the number of things that appear neglected and out of place; on the other hand, the natives are seen proceeding, with their various occupations, with wonderful content and cheerfulness.

A further acquaintance with them discovers their loquacity, their credulity, and what may be considered as one of the greatest differences in the condition of the English and French people, the great activity of the women. While in Britain the fair sex are confined to domestic cares, in France they are in the habit of taking a part in almost every kind of business, and appear much more frequently than the men in shops and warehouses. The French receive foreigners with open arms, seldom requiring an introduction, considering the name of stranger a sufficient title to their good offices. Another characteristic of the French is their doing every thing in public. They work, sit, and talk in the streets, and have very little reserve in their communications about their private affairs. They are much more backward than the English in whatever relates to domestic comfort, or the finish of manufacture. This is apparent in the want of neatness and comfort in their houses; the rooms are dark, the floors of stone, while the doors and windows seldom shut tight. Furnished lodgings are rarely met with, and when they are, the furniture is miserably deficient.

The French affect freedom and wit; but fashionable dresses and diversions engross too much of their conversation. Their diversions are similar to those of the English; but their gallantry is of a different complexion. Their attention to the fair degenerates into gross foppery in the men, and in the ladies it is kept up by admitting improper freedoms. They may be characterized as a gay, lively,

volatile people; more influenced by sentiment and passion, than by sedate judgment; impelled by the ideas of the moment without regard to the probable consequences; generally destitute of fixed principles of morality and virtue; floating between superstition and infidelity; and exhibiting, amidst the most temperate habits in ordinary life, a warmth and vehemence, at which cool observers are surprised and disgusted.

Condition of the people.

The government of France, (since 1814,) is a limited monarchy, similar to that of England. The parliament is composed, 1st, of a chamber of peers, consisting of upwards of 200 members, possessing privileges similar to those of the peerage of Great-Britain, the dignity being hereditary; 2dly, of a house of commons, or chamber of deputies, elected by the people, whose number cannot be less than 256. No person can be an elector without paying an annual tax of £12, or a deputy, without paying one of £40. The number of persons, therefore, qualified to be electors is comparatively small, not more than one to 45 land proprietors, while the number of those who are qualified to become deputies is much smaller.

The island of Corsica sends two deputies, but has less than 40 electors; in some of the departments there are not more than 200 electors to a deputy, while in the city of Paris, which sends eight deputies, there are 9,000 electors. Besides the few hundred families to which the peerage is limited, there are many thousands, who, before the revolution, belonged to the noblesse, and who have, since the restoration of the Bourbons, resumed their titles; and every town now has its barons, its viscounts, its counts or marquises; but these titles are now merely complimentary, and no longer confer the privileges, formerly attached to them.

The condition of the people has been much improved since the revolution. Before that event the clergy possessed nearly a fifth part of the property of the kingdom, and had an annual income of seven or eight millions sterling; their present income is only about one million, and their numbers are greatly diminished. The confiscated estates of the church and of the emigrant nobility were

exposed to sale during the revolutionary government; to accommodate the lowest order of purchasers, they were divided into small portions, so that the poorest classes of peasantry were enabled to become land proprietors, possessing from one to ten acres each. A great portion of the people, formerly consisting of mere country labourers, were thus suddenly raised to the rank of proprietors, while the great landed estates have become very few. The peasantry now generally own the lands which they cultivate. This circumstance has given a great impulse to industry, and the agriculture, though in many parts still unskilful, has been much improved.

About one half of the whole population consists of proprietors, great and small and two thirds are employed in agriculture. In Great Britain only about one third of the population is concerned in agriculture, and a little more than one sixth consists of proprietors of the soil.

The

French proprietors have the advantage over the English labourers, by the salutary feeling of property; yet with regard to neatness and comfort of their dwellings, the latter have the advantage over a great part of the former. Nearly the whole time of the English labourer's wife is devoted to domestic employments; while the wife of the French proprietor labours with him in the field.

Bread, generally of excellent quality, forms a great part of the food of a Frenchman. Soups are abundant and in great variety. An Englishman in France is surprised at never seeing a joint of meat brought to the table, and apparently makes little account of the numerous dishes which rapidly succeed each other. He is as little pleased with the small blunt knife which is brought him, forgetting that there is neither a leg of mutton, nor a round of beef, to be carved; and as for the poultry, it is so young, and so thoroughly cooked, that a fowl or a duck is separated with the greatest ease. Fish is always served with a spoon, and eaten with a fork. A Frenchman is never seen to touch fish with a knife; a large four pronged silver fork is used upon almost all occasions at dinner.

The common people, in general, consume but little meat; bread made of rye, of rye and wheat, or of barley, and wheat, chesnuts, maize prepared in different ways, and fruit, are their usual food. They generally drink but

little wine, even where it is cheap and abundant. Their clothes being made mostly of materials grown by themselves, are coarse, but they are better supplied, especially with linen, than the peasantry of England. To a person who has been accustomed to see nearly the same mode of dress, in all parts of England, even the most remote, it seems singular to observe in France such a diversity of fashions; so little is the intercourse between the capital and the adjacent provinces, that, in the latter, modes of dress are seen, which have not prevailed in the former, probably for nearly a century.

The cottages of the peasantry are in general small, but in many parts of France by no means destitute of convenience or taste. In many of the vine provinces, the vine dressers inhabit cottages dug out of the sides of the chalk hills.

Wood is the common fuel throughout France, and in some parts, especially in Paris, it is a very expensive article. Turf is used in some districts. Coal, though by no means scarce, is seldom used, a prejudice existing against it.

Before the revolution, the poor were supported, either by the ecclesiastics, or by begging; but since that event the method has been by maintaining, in the large towns, generally two hospitals, one for the indigent sick, and the other for the aged poor. Beggars, however, in the streets of the cities, and on the high roads of France, are very

numerous.

It is now computed, that more than half of the inhabitants of France are unable to read and write; yet the means of education have been greatly extended within a few years past; and should the exertions continue with equal success, it will not be long before all the population may possess the advantage of being instructed in the common branches.

The following are the remarks of Mr. Simond, on the country and the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of Dijon. "It is a fine country; some attempts at enclosures, by means of thick-set hedges, are observable. In general the fields are all open; and the few cattle and sheep, feeding in fallow lands, or along the road side, are watched, or even held by a rope. It is in France a matter of surprise and inquiry for a stranger, how cattle are fed? .so

few meadows being seen, and no pastures; as in England it might well be asked how bread is produced? green grass prevailing so much there over cornfields. Cattle in France are, in general, not fine; the race of sheep, and that of hogs particularly, is very indifferent: the latter long-legged and gaunt, with a thin, arched back and low head, seem to feel the pressure of the present scarcity, or rather never to have known plenty; from their hurried gait, ferocious looks, and threatening grunt, they might be taken for wild boars recently tamed by hunger, rather than domestic animals.

"The whole rural population is at work in the fields; women as well as men. The women wear white caps and immense straw hats; bright red, striped handkerchiefs over their shoulders, wooden shoes, and no stockings. They are employed in weeding cornfields, which want it sadly, and use for that purpose a sort of double-edged billhook. The men wear blue cotton smock-frocks, and many of them military cocked hats, preposterously large. They plow with all sorts of cattle; cows, oxen, horses, asses, often harnessed together. We are told that a woman has been yoked with a hog of the species just described, patiently ploughing together.

"All tools in general, and agricultural tools in particular, are here remarkably clumsy and awkward; the large hoe, or rather mattock, used to dress vineyards, is extremely heavy, and the handle so short, that the unhappy labourers work absolutely bent double; and the vignerons, (vine-dressers,) are known by their habitual stoop and worn out appearance.

"Beggars are numerous; at every stage a crowd of women and children and of old men, gather round the carriage; their cries, the eloquence of all these pale and emaciated countenances, lifted up to us with imploring hands, are more than we can well bear."

The following remarks on the character and condition of the French out of the capital, are extracted from the travels of Mr. Birkbeck. I prefer, says this traveller, the country character of France to that of the city. In the former the good fruits of the revolution are visible at every step: previous to that era, in the country, the bulk of the population, all but the nobles and the priests, were