Chapter LXV: Part VI: Miscellaneous Papers (5)

4th. Potash. This article is of principal utility to France in her bleacheries of linen, glass-works, and soap-works; and the potash of America, being made of green wood, is known to be the best in the world. All duty on it was therefore abolished by the King. But the city of Rouen levies on it a duty of twenty sols the quintal, which is very sensible in its price, brings it dearer to the bleacheries near Paris, to those of Beauvais, Laval Company, and to the glass-works, and encourages them to give a preference to the potash or soda of other nations. This is a counteraction of the views of the King expressed in the letter, which it is hoped will be prevented.

5th. Turpentine, tar, and pitch, were not decided on the former occasion. Turpentine (Terebenthine) pays ten sols the quintal, and ten sols the livre, making fifteen sols the quintal; which is ten per cent. on its prime cost. Tar, (goudron, braigras) pays eight livres the leth of twelve barrels, and ten sols the livre, amounting to twenty sols the barrel, which is twelve and a half per cent. on its prime cost. Pitch (brai sec) pays ten sols the quintal, and ten sols the livre, making fifteen sols the quintal, which is twenty per cent. on its prime cost. Duties of from ten to twenty per cent. on articles of heavy carriage, prevent their importation. They eat up all the profits of the merchant, and often subject him to loss. This has been much the case with respect to turpentine, tar, and pitch, which are a principal article of remittance for the State of North Carolina. It is hoped that it will coincide with the views of government in making the present regulations, to suppress the duties on these articles, which of all others can bear them least.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Memoires presentées à l'assemblée des Notables, page 53.

[17] Memoires presentées ex. page 51, 52.

IX.

[18]_Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the piratical States of Barbary, November 1786._

1. It is proposed that the several powers at war with the piratical States of Barbary, (or any two or more of them who shall be willing,) shall enter into a convention to carry on their operations against those States in concert, beginning with the Algerines.

2. This convention shall remain open to any other power who shall, at any future time, wish to accede to it: the parties reserving a right to prescribe the conditions of such accession according to the circumstances existing at the time it shall be proposed.

3. The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace, without price, and to guarantee that peace to each other.

4. The operations for obtaining that peace shall be constant cruises on their coast, with a naval force to be agreed on. It is not proposed that this force shall be so considerable as to be inconvenient to any party. It is believed that half a dozen frigates, with as many tenders, or xebecks, one half of which shall be on cruise while the other half is at rest, will suffice.

5. The force agreed to be necessary, shall be furnished by the parties in certain quotas now to be fixed: it being expected that each will be willing to contribute in such proportion as circumstances may render reasonable.

6. As miscarriages often proceed from the want of harmony among officers of different nations, the parties shall now consider and decide, whether it shall not be better to contribute their quotas in money, to be employed in fitting out and keeping on duty, a single fleet of the force agreed on.

7. The difficulties and delays too, which will attend the management of these operations, if conducted by the parties themselves separately, distant as their courts may be from one another, and incapable of meeting in consultation, suggest a question whether it will not be better for them to give full powers for that purpose to their ambassador or other minister resident at some one court of Europe, who shall form a committee or council for carrying this convention into effect; wherein the vote of each member shall be computed in proportion to the quota of his sovereign, and the majority, so computed, shall prevail in all questions within the view of this convention. The court of Versailles is proposed, on account of its neighborhood to the Mediterranean, and because all those powers are represented there who are likely to become parties to this convention.

8. To save to that council the embarrassment of personal solicitations for office, and to assure the parties that their contributions will be applied solely to the object for which they are destined, there shall be no establishment of officers for the said council, such as Commissaries, Secretaries, or of any other kind, with either salaries or perquisites, nor any other lucrative appointments, but such as whose functions are to be exercised on board of the said vessels.

9. Should war arise between any two of the parties to this convention, it shall not extend to this enterprise, nor interrupt it; but as to this they shall be reputed at peace.

10. When Algiers shall be reduced to peace, the other piratical States, if they refuse to discontinue their piracies, shall become the objects of this convention either successively or together, as shall seem best.

11. Where this convention would interfere with treaties actually existing between any of the parties and of the said States of Barbary, the treaty shall prevail, and such party shall be allowed to withdraw from the operations against that State.

FOOTNOTE:

[18] [This plan was approved by Portugal, Naples, the
two Sicilies, Venice, Denmark, and Sweden. France seemed
favorably disposed. Spain alone, having just concluded
a treaty with Algiers, was indisposed. In this state of
things, the plan was communicated to Congress, together
with information that we would be expected to maintain a
frigate towards its execution. Unfortunately, the supplies
of the Treasury were so uncertain, that Congress were not
willing to enter into an engagement which they might not
be able to fulfil, and thus the plan failed.--ED.]

X.

_To the Editor of the Journal de Paris._

PARIS, August 29, 1787

SIR,--I am a citizen of the United States of America, and have passed in those States almost the whole of my life. When young, I was passionately fond of reading books of history and travels. Since the commencement of the late revolution which separated us from Great Britain, our country too, has been thought worthy to employ the pens of historians and travellers. I cannot paint to you, Sir, the agonies which these have cost me, in obliging me to renounce these favorite branches of reading, and in discovering to me at length, that my whole life has been employed in nourishing my mind with fables and falsehoods. For thus I reason. If the histories of d'Auberteuil and of Longchamps, and the travels of the Abbé Robin can be published in the face of the world, and can be read and believed by those who are cotemporary with the events they pretend to relate, how may we expect that future ages shall be better informed? Will those rise from their graves to bear witness to the truth, who would not, while living, lift their voices against falsehood? If cotemporary histories are thus false, what will future compilations be? And what are all those of preceding times? In your journal of this day, you announce and criticise a book under the title of "les ligues Acheenne, Suisse, & Hollandoise, et revolution des etats unis d'e l'Amerique par M. de Mayer." I was no part of the Achaean, Swiss or Dutch confederacies, and have therefore nothing to say against the facts related of them. And you cite only one fact from his account of the American revolution. It is in these words: "Monsieur Mayer assure qu'une seule voix, un seul homme, prononça l'independance des Etats unis. Ce fut, dit il, John Dickinson, un des Deputés de la Pensilvanie au Congrés. La veille, il avoit vôté pour la soumission. L'egalité des suffrages avoit suspendu la resolution; s'il eut persisté, le Congrés ne deliberoit point, il fut foible: il ceda aux instances de ceux qui avoient plus d'energie, plus d'eloquence, et plus de lumieres; il donna sa voix: l'Amerique lui doit une reconnaissance eternelle; c'est Dickinson qui l'a affranchie." The modesty and candor of Mr. Dickinson himself, Sir, would disavow every word of this paragraph, except these--"il avoit voté pour la soumission." These are true, every other tittle false. I was on the spot, and can relate to you this transaction with precision. On the 7th of June, 1776, the delegates from Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from their constituents, that Congress should declare the thirteen united colonies to be independent of Great Britain, that a confederation should be formed to bind them together, and measures be taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers. The House ordered a punctual attendance of all their members the next day at ten o'clock, and then resolved themselves into a committee of the whole and entered on the discussion. It appeared in the course of the debates that seven States: viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, were decided for a separation; but that six others still hesitated, to wit: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina. Congress, desirous of unanimity, and seeing that the public mind was advancing rapidly to it, referred the further discussion to the first of July, appointing, in the mean time, a committee to prepare a declaration of independence, a second to form articles for the confederation of the States, and a third to propose measures for obtaining foreign aid. On the 28th of June, the Declaration of Independence was reported to the House, and was laid on the table for the consideration of the members. On the first day of July, they resolved themselves into a committee of the whole, and resumed the consideration of the motion of June 7th. It was debated through the day, and at length was decided in the affirmative by the vote of nine States: viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, _New Jersey_, _Maryland_, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against it. Delaware, having but two members present, was divided. The delegates from New York declared they were for it, and their constituents also; but that the instructions against it which had been given them a twelvemonth before, were still unrepealed; that their convention was to meet in a few days, and they asked leave to suspend their vote till they could obtain a repeal of their instructions. Observe that all this was in a committee of the whole Congress, and that according to the mode of their proceedings, the resolution of that committee to declare themselves independent, was to be put to the same persons re-assuming their form as a Congress. It was now evening, the members exhausted by a debate of nine hours, during which all the powers of the soul had been distended with the magnitude of the object--without refreshment, without a pause--and the delegates of South Carolina desired that the final decision might be put off to the next morning, that they might still weigh in their own minds their ultimate vote. It was put off, and in the morning of the second of July they joined the other nine States in voting for it. The members of the Pennsylvania delegation too, who had been absent the day before, came in and turned the vote of their State in favor of independence; and a third member of the State of Delaware, who, hearing of the division in the sentiments of his two colleagues, had travelled post to arrive in time, now came in and decided the vote of that State also for the resolution. Thus twelve States voted for it at the time of its passage, and the delegates of New York, the thirteenth State, received instructions within a few days to add theirs to the general vote: so that, instead of the "egalité des suffrages" spoken of by M. Mayer, there was not a dissenting voice. Congress proceeded immediately to consider the Declaration of Independence which had been reported by their committee on the 28th of June. The several paragraphs of that were debated for three days: viz., the second, third, and fourth of July. In the evening of the fourth they were finally closed, and the instrument approved by an unanimous vote and signed by every member, _except Mr. Dickinson_. Look into the Journal of Congress of that day, Sir, and you will see the instrument and the names of the signers, and that Mr. Dickinson's name is not among them. Then read again those words of your paper: "il (M. Mayer) assure qu'une seule voix, un seul homme, prononça l'independance des etats unis, ce fut John Dickinson--l'Amerique lui doit une reconnoissance eternel; c'est Dickinson qui l'a affranchie." With my regrets, and my adieus to history, to travels, to Mayer, and to you, Sir, permit me to mingle assurances of the great respect with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.

XI.

_Memoranda taken on a journey from Paris into the southern parts of France, and northern of Italy, in the year 1787._

CHAMPAGNE. March 3. _Sens_ to _Vermanton_. The face of the country is in large hills, not too steep for the plough, somewhat resembling the Elk hill, and Beaver-dam hills of Virginia. The soil is generally a rich mulatto loam, with a mixture of coarse sand and some loose stone. The plains of the Yonne are of the same color. The plains are in corn, the hills in vineyard, but the wine not good. There are a few apple trees, but none of any other kind, and no inclosures. No cattle, sheep, or swine; fine mules.

Few châteaux; no farm-houses, all the people being gathered in villages. Are they thus collected by that dogma of their religion, which makes them believe, that to keep the Creator in good humor with his own works, they must mumble a mass every day? Certain it is, that they are less happy and less virtuous in villages, than they would be insulated with their families on the grounds they cultivate. The people are illy clothed. Perhaps they have put on their worst clothes at this moment, as it is raining. But I observe women and children carrying heavy burthens, and laboring with the hoe. This is an unequivocal indication of extreme poverty. Men, in a civilized country, never expose their wives and children to labor above their force and sex, as long as their own labor can protect them from it. I see few beggars. Probably this is the effect of a police.

BURGUNDY. March 4. _Lucy le bois._ _Cussy les forges._ _Rouvray._ _Maison-neuve._ _Vitteaux._ _La Chaleure._ _Pont de Panis._ _Dijon._ The hills are higher and more abrupt. The soil, a good red loam and sand, mixed with more or less grit, small stone, and sometimes rock. All in corn. Some forest wood here and there, broom, whins and holly, and a few inclosures of quick hedge. Now and then a flock of sheep.

The people are well clothed, but it is Sunday. They have the appearance of being well fed. The Château de Sevigny, near Cussy les forges, is a charming situation. Between Maisonneuve and Vitteaux the road leads through an avenue of trees, eight American miles long, in a right line. It is impossible to paint the ennui of this avenue. On the summits of the hills which border the valley in which Vitteaux is, there is a parapet of rock, twenty, thirty, or forty feet perpendicular, which crowns the hills. The tops are nearly level, and appear to be covered with earth. Very singular. Great masses of rock in the hills between la Chaleure and Pont de Panis, and a conical hill in the approach to the last place.

_Dijon._ The tavern price of a bottle of the best wine (_e. g._ of Vaune) is four livres. The best round potatoes here I ever saw. They have begun a canal thirty feet wide, which is to lead into the Saone at ----. It is fed by springs. They are not allowed to take any water out of the riviere d'Ouche, which runs through this place, on account of the mills on that river. They talk of making a canal to the Seine, the nearest navigable part of which at present is fifteen leagues from hence. They have very light wagons here for the transportation of their wine. They are long and narrow; the fore wheels as high as the hind. Two pieces of wine are drawn by one horse in one of these wagons. The road in this part of the country is divided into portions of forty or fifty feet by stones, numbered, which mark the task of the laborers.

March 7 and 8. From _la Baraque_ to _Chagny_. On the left are plains which extend to the Saone, on the right the ridge of mountains called the Cote. The plains are of a reddish-brown, rich loam, mixed with much small stone. The Cote has for its basis a solid rock, on which is about a foot of soil and small stone, in equal quantities, the soil red and of middling quality. The plains are in corn; the Cote in vines. The former have no inclosures, the latter is in small ones of dry stone wall. There is a good deal of forest. Some small herds of small cattle and sheep. Fine mules, which come from Provence, and cost twenty louis. They break them at two years old, and they last to thirty.

The corn lands here rent for about fifteen livres the arpent. They are now planting, pruning, and sticking their vines. When a new vineyard is made, they plant the vines in gutters about four feet apart. As the vines advance, they lay them down. They put out new shoots, and fill all the intermediate space, till all trace of order is lost. They have ultimately about one foot square to each vine. They begin to yield good profit at five or six years old, and last one hundred, or one hundred and fifty years. A vigneron at Voulenay carried me into his vineyard, which was of about ten arpents. He told me that some years it produced him sixty pieces of wine, and some, not more than three pieces. The latter is the most advantageous produce, because the wine is better in quality, and higher in price in proportion as less is made, and the expenses at the same time diminish in the same proportion. Whereas, when much is made, the expenses are increased, while the price and quality become less. In very plentiful years, they often give one half the wine for casks to contain the other half. The cask for two hundred and fifty bottles, costs six livres in scarce years, and ten in plentiful. The Feuillette is of one hundred and twenty-five bottles, the Piece of two hundred and fifty, and the Queue or Botte, of five hundred. An arpent rents at from twenty to sixty livres. A farmer of ten arpents has about three laborers engaged by the year. He pays four louis to a man, and half as much to a woman, and feeds them. He kills one hog, and salts it, which is all the meat used in the family during the year. Their ordinary food is bread and vegetables. At Pommard and Voulenay, I observed them eating good wheat bread; at Meursault, rye. I asked the reason of this difference. They told me that the white wines fail in quality much oftener than the red, and remain on hand. The farmer, therefore, cannot afford to feed his laborers so well. At Meursault, only white wines are made, because there is too much stone for the red. On such slight circumstances depends the condition of man! The wines which have given such celebrity to Burgundy, grow only on the Cote, an extent of about five leagues long, and half a league wide. They begin at Chambertin, and go through Vougeau, Romanie, Veaune, Nuys, Beaune, Pommard, Voulenay, Meursault, and end at Monrachet. Those of the two last are white, the others red. Chambertin, Vougeau and Neaune are strongest, and will bear transportation and keeping. They sell, therefore, on the spot for twelve hundred livres the queue, which is forty-eight sous the bottle. Voulenay is the best of the other reds, equal in flavor to Chambertin, &c., but being lighter, will not keep, and therefore sells for not more than three hundred livres the queue, which is twelve sous the bottle. It ripens sooner than they do, and consequently is better for those who wish to broach at a year old. In like manner of the white wines, and for the same reason, Monrachet sells for twelve hundred livres the queue (forty-eight sous the bottle), and Meursault of the best quality, viz., the Goutte d'or, at only one hundred and fifty livres (six sous the bottle). It is remarkable, that the best of each kind, that is, of the red and white, is made at the extremities of the line, to wit, at Chambertin and Monrachet. It is pretended that the adjoining vineyards produce the same qualities, but that belonging to obscure individuals, they have not obtained a name, and therefore sell as other wines. The aspect of the Cote is a little south of east. The western side is also covered with vines, and is apparently of the same soil, yet the wines are of the coarsest kinds. Such, too, are those which are produced in the plains; but there the soil is richer and less strong. Vougeau is the property of the monks of Citeaux, and produces about two hundred pieces. Monrachet contains about fifty arpents, and produces, one year with another, about one hundred and twenty pieces. It belongs to two proprietors only, Monsieur de Clarmont, who leases to some wine merchants, and the Marquis de Sarsnet, of Dijon, whose part is farmed to a Monsieur de la Tour, whose family for many generations have had the farm. The best wines are carried to Paris by land. The transportation costs thirty-six livres the piece. The more indifferent go by water. Bottles cost four and a half sous each.

March 9. _Chalons._ _Sennecy._ _Tournus._ _St. Albin._ _Macon._ On the left are the fine plains of the Saone; on the right, high lands, rather waving than hilly, sometimes sloping gently to the plains, sometimes dropping down in precipices, and occasionally broken into beautiful vallies by the streams which run into the Saone. The plains are a dark rich loam, in pasture and corn; the heights more or less red or reddish, always gritty, of middling quality only, their sides in vines, and their summits in corn. The vineyards are inclosed with dry stone walls, and there are some quick hedges in the corn grounds. The cattle are few and indifferent. There are some good oxen, however. They draw by the head. Few sheep, and small. A good deal of wood lands.

I passed three times the canal called le Charollois, which they are opening from Chalons on the Saone to Dijon on the Loire. It passes near Chagny, and will be twenty-three leagues long. They have worked on it three years, and will finish it in four more. It will re-animate the languishing commerce of Champagne and Burgundy, by furnishing a water transportation for their wines to Nantes, which also will receive new consequence by becoming the emporium of that commerce. At some distance on the right are high mountains, which probably form the separation between the waters of the Saone and Loire. Met a malefactor in the hands of one of the Marechausée; perhaps a dove in the talons of the hawk. The people begin now to be in separate establishments, and not in villages. Houses are mostly covered with tile.

BEAUJOLOIS. _Maison blanche._ _St. George._ _Château de Laye-Epinaye._ The face of the country is like that from Chalons to Macon. The plains are a dark rich loam, the hills a red loam of middling quality, mixed generally with more or less coarse sand and grit, and a great deal of small stone. Very little forest. The vineyards are mostly inclosed with dry stone wall. A few small cattle and sheep. Here, as in Burgundy, the cattle are all white.

This is the richest country I ever beheld. It is about ten or twelve leagues in length, and three, four, or five in breadth; at least, that part of it which is under the eye of the traveller. It extends from the top of a ridge of mountains, running parallel with the Saone, and sloping down to the plains of that river, scarcely any where too steep for the plough. The whole is thick set with farm-houses, chateaux, and the Bastides of the inhabitants of Lyons. The people live separately, and not in villages. The hill sides are in vine and corn; the plains in corn and pasture. The lands are farmed either for money, or on half-stocks. The rents of the corn lands, farmed for money, are about ten or twelve livres the arpent. A farmer takes, perhaps, about one hundred and fifty arpents, for three, six, or nine years. The first year they are in corn; the second in other small grain, with which he sows red clover. The third is for the clover. The spontaneous pasturage is of green sward, which they call fromenteau. When lands are rented on half-stocks, the cattle, sheep, &c., are furnished by the landlord. They are valued, and must be left of equal value. The increase of these, as well as the produce of the farm, is divided equally. These leases are only from year to year. They have a method of mixing beautifully the culture of vines, trees, and corn. Rows of fruit trees are planted about twenty feet apart. Between the trees, in the row, they plant vines four feet apart, and espalier them. The intervals are sowed alternately in corn, so as to be one year in corn, the next in pasture, the third in corn, the fourth in pasture, &c. One hundred toises of vines in length, yield generally about four pieces of wine. In Dauphiné, I am told, they plant vines only at the roots of the trees, and let them cover the whole trees. But this spoils both the wine and the fruit. Their wine when distilled, yields but one-third its quantity in brandy. The wages of a laboring man here, are five louis; of a woman, one half. The women do not work with the hoe; they only weed the vines, the corn, &c., and spin. They speak a Patois very difficult to understand. I passed some time at the Château de Laye-Epinaye. Monsieur de Laye has a seignory of about fifteen thousand arpents, in pasture, corn, vines, and wood. He has over this, as is usual, a certain jurisdiction, both criminal and civil. But this extends only to the first crude examination, which is before his judges. The subject is referred for final examination and decision, to the regular judicatures of the country. The Seigneur is keeper of the peace on his domains. He is therefore subject to the expenses of maintaining it. A criminal prosecuted to sentence and execution, costs M. de Laye about five thousand livres. This is so burthensome to the Seigneurs, that they are slack in criminal prosecutions. A good effect from a bad cause. Through all Champagne, Burgundy, and the Beaujolois, the husbandry seems good, except that they manure too little. This proceeds from the shortness of their leases. The people of Burgundy and Beaujolois are well clothed, and have the appearance of being well fed. But they experience all the oppressions which result from the nature of the general government, and from that of their particular tenures, and of the seignorial government to which they are subject. What a cruel reflection, that a rich country cannot long be a free one. M. de Laye has a Diana and Endymion, a very superior morsel of sculpture by Michael Angelo Slodtz, done in 1740. The wild gooseberry is in leaf; the wild pear and sweet briar in bud.

_Lyons._ There are some feeble remains here, of an amphitheatre of two hundred feet diameter, and of an aqueduct in brick. The Pont d'Ainay has nine arches of forty feet from centre to centre. The piers are of six feet. The almond is in bloom.

DAUPHINE. From _St. Fond_ to _Mornas_. March 15, 16, 17, 18. The Rhone makes extensive plains, which lie chiefly on the eastern side, and are often in two stages. Those of Montelimart are three or four miles wide, and rather good. Sometimes, as in the neighborhood of Vienne, the hills come in precipices to the river, resembling then very much our Susquehanna and its hills, except that the Susquehanna is ten times as wide as the Rhone. The highlands are often very level. The soil, both of hill and plain, where there is soil, is generally tinged, more or less, with red. The hills are sometimes mere masses of rock, sometimes a mixture of loose stone and earth. The plains are always stony, and, as often as otherwise, covered perfectly with a coat of round stones, of the size of the fist, so as to resemble the remains of inundations, from which all the soil has been carried away. Sometimes they are middling good, sometimes barren. In the neighborhood of Lyons, there is more corn than wine. Towards Tains, more wine than corn. From thence, the plains, where best, are in corn, clover, almonds, mulberries, walnuts; where there is still some earth, they are in corn, almonds, and oaks. The hills are in vines. There is a good deal of forest-wood near Lyons, but not much afterwards. Scarcely any inclosures. There are a few small sheep before we reach Tains; there the number increases.

Nature never formed a country of more savage aspect, than that on both sides the Rhone. A huge torrent, rushes like an arrow between high precipices, often of massive rock, at other times of loose stone, with but little earth. Yet has the hand of man subdued this savage scene, by planting corn where there is a little fertility, trees where there is still less, and vines where there is none. On the whole, it assumes a romantic, picturesque, and pleasing air. The hills on the opposite side of the river, being high, steep, and laid up in terraces, are of a singular appearance. Where the hills are quite in waste, they are covered with broom, whins, box, and some clusters of small pines. The high mountains of Dauphiné and Languedoc are now covered with snow. The almond is in general bloom, and the willow putting out its leaf. There were formerly olives at Pains; but a great cold, some years ago, killed them, and they have not been replanted. I am told at Montelimart, that an almond tree yields about three livres profit a year. Supposing them three toises apart, there will be one hundred to the arpent, which gives three hundred livres a year, besides the corn growing on the same ground. A league below Vienne, on the opposite side of the river, is Cote Rotie. It is a string of broken hills, extending a league on the river, from the village of Ampuys to the town of Condrieux. The soil is white, tinged a little, sometimes, with yellow, sometimes with red, stony, poor, and laid up in terraces. Those parts of the hills only, which look to the sun at mid-day, or the earlier hours of the afternoon, produce wines of the first quality. Seven hundred vines, three feet apart, yield a feuillette, which is about two and a half pieces, to the arpent. The best red wine is produced at the upper end, in the neighborhood of Ampuys; the best white, next to Condrieux. They sell of the first quality and last vintage, at one hundred and fifty livres the piece, equal to twelve sous the bottle. Transportation to Paris is sixty livres, and the bottle four sous; so it may be delivered at Paris in bottles, at twenty sous. When old, it costs ten or eleven louis the piece. There is a quality which keeps well, bears transportation, and cannot be drunk under four years. Another must be drunk at a year old. They are equal in flavor and price.

The wine called Hermitage is made on the hills impending over the village of Tains; on one of which is the hermitage, which gives name to the hills for about two miles, and to the wine made on them. There are but three of those hills which produce wine of the first quality, and of these, the middle regions only. They are about three hundred feet perpendicular height, three-quarters of a mile in length, and have a southern aspect. The soil is scarcely tinged red, consists of small rotten stone, and is, where the best wine is made, without any perceptible mixture of earth. It is in sloping terraces. They use a little dung. An homme de vignes, which consists of seven hundred plants, three feet apart, yields generally about three quarters of a piece, which is nearly four pieces to the arpent. When new, the piece is sold at about two hundred and twenty-five livres; when old, at three hundred. It cannot be drunk under four years, and improves fastest in a hot situation. There is so little white made in proportion to the red, that it is difficult to buy it separate. They make the white sell the red. If bought separately, it is from fifteen to sixteen louis the piece, new, and three livres the bottle, old. To give quality to the red, they mix one eighth of white grapes. Portage to Paris is seventy-two livres the piece, weighing six hundred pounds. There are but about one thousand pieces of both red and white, of the first quality, made annually. Vineyards are never rented here, nor are laborers in the vineyard hired by the year. They leave buds proportioned to the strength of the vine; sometimes as much as fifteen inches. The last hermit died in 1751.

In the neighborhood of Montelimart, and below that, they plant vines in rows, six, eight, or ten feet apart, and two feet asunder in the row, filling the intervals with corn. Sometimes the vines are in double rows, two feet apart. I saw single asses in ploughs proportioned to their strength. There are few chateaux in this province. The people, too, are mostly gathered into villages. There are, however, some scattering farm houses. These are made either of mud, or of round stone and mud. They make inclosures also, in both those ways. Day laborers receive sixteen or eighteen sous the day, and feed themselves. Those by the year receive, men three louis, women half that, and are fed. They rarely eat meat; a single hog salted, being the year's stock for a family. But they have plenty of cheese, eggs, potatoes and other vegetables, and walnut oil with their salad. It is a trade here, to gather dung along the road for their vines. This proves they have few cattle. I have seen neither hares nor partridges since I left Paris, nor wild fowl on any of the rivers. The roads from Lyons to St. Rambert, are neither paved nor gravelled. After that, they are coated with broken flint. The ferry boats on the Rhone and the Isere, are moved by the stream, and very rapidly. On each side of the river is a moveable stage, one end of which is on an axle and two wheels, which, according to the tide, can be advanced or withdrawn, so as to apply to the gunwale of the boat. The Prætorian palace at Vienne is forty-four feet wide, of the Corinthian order, four columns in front, and four in flank. It was begun in the year 400, and finished by Charlemagne. The Sepulchral pyramid, a little way out of the town, has an order for its basement, the pedestal of which, from point to point of its cap, is twenty-four feet one inch. At each angle, is a column, engaged one fourth in the wall. The circumference of the three fourths disengaged, is four feet four inches; consequently, the diameter is twenty-three inches. The base of the column indicates it to be Ionic, but the capitals are not formed. The cornice, too, is a bastard Ionic, without modillions or dentils. Between the columns, on each side, is an arch of eight feet four inches, opening with a pilaster on each side of it. On the top of the basement is a zocle, in the plane of the frieze below. On that is the pyramid, its base in the plane of the collarins of the pilaster below. The pyramid is a little truncated on its top. This monument is inedited.

March 18th. _Principality of Orange._ The plains on the Rhone here are two or three leagues wide, reddish, good, in corn, clover, almonds, olives. No forests. Here begins the country of olives, there being very few till we enter this principality. They are the only tree which I see planted among vines. Thyme grows wild here on the hills. Asses, very small, sell here for two or three louis. The high hills in Dauphiné are covered with snow. The remains of the Roman aqueduct are of brick: a fine piece of Mosaic, still on its bed, forming the floor of a cellar. Twenty feet of it still visible. They are taking down the circular wall of the amphitheatre to pave a road.

March 19th to 23d. LANGUEDOC. _Pont St. Esprit._ _Bagnols._ _Connault._ _Valignieres._ _Remoulins._ _St. Gervasy._ _Nismes._ _Pont d'Arles._ To Remoulins, there is a mixture of hill and dale. Thence to Nismes, hills on the right, on the left, plains extending to the Rhone and the sea. The hills are rocky. Where there is soil, it is reddish and poor. The plains, generally reddish and good, but stony. When you approach the Rhone, going to Arles, the soil becomes a dark gray loam with some sand, and very good. The culture is corn, clover, St. foin, olives, vines, mulberries, willow, and some almonds. There is no forest. The hills are inclosed in dry stone wall. Many sheep.

From the summit of the first hill, after leaving Pont St. Esprit, there is a beautiful view of the bridge at about two miles distance, and a fine landscape of the country both ways. From thence, an excellent road, judiciously conducted, through very romantic scenes. In one part, descending the face of a hill, it is laid out in serpentine, and not zigzag, to ease the descent. In others, it passes through a winding meadow, from fifty to one hundred yards, walled, as it were, on both sides, by hills of rock; and at length issues into plain country. The waste hills are covered with thyme, box, and chene-vert. Where the body of the mountains has a surface of soil, the summit has sometimes a crown of rock, as observed in Champagne. At Nismes, the earth is full of lime-stone. The horses are shorn. They are now pruning the olive. A very good tree produces sixty pounds of olives, which yield fifteen pounds of oil: the best quality sells at twelve sous the pound, retail, and ten sous, wholesale. The high hills of Languedoc still covered with snow. The horse chestnut and mulberry are leafing; apple trees and peas blossoming. The first butterfly I have seen. After the vernal equinox, they are often six or eight months without rain. Many separate farm houses, numbers of people in rags, and abundance of beggars. The mine of wheat, weighing thirty pounds, costs four livres and ten sous. Wheat bread, three sous the pound. Vin ordinaire, good, and of a strong body, two or three sous the bottle. Oranges, one sous a piece. They are nearly finishing at Nismes, a great mill, worked by a steam engine, which pumps water from a lower into an upper cistern, from whence two overshot wheels are supplied, each of which turns two pair of stones. The upper cistern being once filled with water, it passes through the wheels into the lower one, from whence it is returned to the upper by the pumps. A stream of water of one quarter or one half inch diameter, supplies the waste of evaporation, absorption, &c. This is furnished from a well by a horse. The arches of the Pont St. Esprit are of eighty-eight feet. Wild figs, very flourishing, grow out of the joints of the Pont du Gard. The fountain of Nismes is so deep, that a stone was thirteen seconds descending from the surface to the bottom.

March 24th. From _Nismes_ to _Arles_. The plains extending from Nismes to the Rhone, in the direction of Arles, are broken in one place by a skirt of low hills. They are red and stony at first, but as you approach the Rhone, they are of a dark gray mould, with a little sand, and very good. They are in corn and clover, vines, olives, almonds, mulberries, and willow. There are some sheep, no wood, no inclosures.

The high hills of Languedoc are covered with snow. At an ancient church, in the suburbs of Arles, are some hundreds of ancient stone coffins, along the road side. The ground is thence called les champs elysées. In a vault in a church, are some curiously wrought, and in a back yard are many ancient statues, inscriptions, &c. Within the town, are a part of two Corinthian columns, and of the pediment with which they were crowned, very rich, having belonged to the ancient capitol of the place. But the principal monument here, is an amphitheatre, the external portico of which is tolerably complete. How many porticoes there were, cannot be seen: but at one of the principal gates, there are still five, measuring, from out to in, seventy-eight feet ten inches, the vault diminishing inwards. There are sixty-four arches, each of which is, from centre to centre, twenty feet six inches. Of course, the diameter is of four hundred and thirty-eight feet; or of four hundred and fifty feet, if we suppose the four principal arches a little larger than the rest. The ground-floor is supported on innumerable vaults. The first story, externally, has a tall pedestal, like a pilaster, between every two arches: the upper story, a column, the base of which would indicate it Corinthian. Every column is truncated as low as the impost of the arch, but the arches are all entire. The whole of the upper entablature is gone, and of the Attic, if there was one. Not a single seat of the internal is visible. The whole of the inside, and nearly the whole of the outside, is masked by buildings. It is supposed there are one thousand inhabitants within the amphitheatre. The walls are more entire and firm than those of the amphitheatre at Nismes. I suspect its plan and distribution to have been very different from that.

_Terrasson._ The plains of the Rhone from Arles to this place, are a league or two wide: the mould is of a dark gray, good, in corn and lucerne. Neither wood, nor inclosures. Many sheep.

_St. Remis._ From Terrasson to St. Remis, is a plain of a league or two wide, bordered by broken hills of massive rock. It is gray and stony, mostly in olives. Some almonds, mulberries, willows, vines, corn, and lucerne. Many sheep. No forest, nor inclosures.

A laboring man's wages here, are one hundred and fifty livres, a woman's half, and fed. Two hundred and eighty pounds of wheat sell for forty-two livres. They make no butter here. It costs, when bought, fifteen sous the pound. Oil is ten sous the pound. Tolerably good olive trees yield, one with another, about twenty pounds of oil. An olive tree must be twenty years old before it has paid its own expenses. It lasts forever. In 1765, it was so cold, that the Rhone was frozen over at Arles for two months. In 1767, there was a cold spell of a week, which killed all the olive trees. From being fine weather, in one hour there was ice hard enough to bear a horse. It killed people on the road. The old roots of the olive trees put out again. Olive grounds sell for twenty-four livres a tree, and lease at twenty-four sous the tree. The trees are fifteen pieds apart. But lucerne is a more profitable culture. An arpent yields one hundred quintals of hay a year, worth three livres the quintal. It is cut four or five times a year. It is sowed in the broadcast, and lasts five or six years. An arpent of ground for corn, rents at from thirty to thirty-six livres. Their leases are for six or nine years. They plant willow for fire-wood, and for hoops to their casks. It seldom rains here in summer. There are some chateaux, many separate farm-houses, good, and ornamented in the small way, so as to show that the tenant's whole time is not occupied in procuring physical necessaries.

March 25th. _Orgon._ _Pontroyal._ _St. Cannat._ From Orgon to Pontroyal, after quitting the plains of the Rhone, the country seems still to be a plain, cut into compartments by chains of mountains of massive rock, running through it in various directions. From Pontroyal to St. Cannat, the land lies rather in basins. The soil is very various, gray and clay, gray and stony, red and stony; sometimes good, sometimes middling, often barren. We find some golden willows. Towards Pontroyal, the hills begin to be in vines, and afterwards, in some pasture of green sward and clover. About Orgon are some inclosures of quick set, others of conical yews planted close. Towards St. Cannat, they begin to be of stone.

The high mountains are covered with snow. Some separate farm-houses of mud. Near Pontroyal is a canal for watering the country; one branch goes to Terrasson, the other to Arles.

March 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th. _Aix._ The country is waving in vines, pasture of green sward and clover, much inclosed with stone, and abounding with sheep.

On approaching Aix, the valley which opens from thence towards the mouth of the Rhone and the sea, is rich and beautiful; a perfect grove of olive trees, mixed among which, are corn, lucerne, and vines. The waste grounds throw out thyme and lavender. Wheat bread is three sous the pound. Cow's milk sixteen sous the quart, sheep's milk six sous, butter of sheep's milk twenty sous the pound. Oil, of the best quality, is twelve sous the pound, and sixteen sous if it be virgin oil. This is what runs from the olive when put into the press, spontaneously; afterwards they are forced by the press and by hot water. Dung costs ten sous the one hundred pounds. Their fire-wood is chene-vert and willow. The latter is lopped every three years. An ass sells for from one to three louis; the best mules for thirty louis. The best asses will carry two hundred pounds; the best horses three hundred pounds; the best mules six hundred pounds. The temperature of the mineral waters of Aix, is 90° of Farenheit's thermometer, at the spout. A mule eats half as much as a horse. The allowance to an ass for the day, is a handful of bran mixed with straw. The price of mutton and beef, about six and a half sous the pound. The beef comes from Auvergne, and is poor and bad. The mutton is small, but of excellent flavor. The wages of a laboring man are one hundred and fifty livres the year, a woman's sixty to sixty-six livres, and fed. Their bread is half wheat, half rye, made once in three or four weeks, to prevent too great a consumption. In the morning, they eat bread with an anchovy, or an onion. Their dinner in the middle of the day, is bread, soup, and vegetables. Their supper the same. With their vegetables, they have always oil and vinegar. The oil costs about eight sous the pound. They drink what is called piquette. This is made after the grapes are pressed, by pouring hot water on the pumice. On Sunday they have meat and wine. Their wood for building comes mostly from the Alps, down the Durance and Rhone. A stick of pine, fifty feet long, girting sixty feet and three inches at one end, and three feet three inches at the other, costs, delivered here, from fifty-four to sixty livres. Sixty pounds of wheat cost seven livres. One of their little asses will travel with his burthen about five or six leagues a day, and day by day; a mule from six to eight leagues.[19]

March 29. _Marseilles._ The country is hilly, intersected by chains of hills and mountains of massive rock. The soil is reddish, stony, and indifferent where best. Wherever there is any soil, it is covered with olives. Among these are corn, vines, some lucerne, mulberry, some almonds and willow. Neither inclosures, nor forest. A very few sheep.