CHAP. XI.

I found a very good drawing-master at Avignon, an élève of David, one who had studied in Italy, an intelligent man; his conversation pleased and instructed me. I had much difficulty to meet with a master of the French language: no one here wanted to learn French; they were contented with such as they talked: there was no demand for institutors in this branch of education. At last I found a professor of the royal college, an ingenious man, but utterly unpractised in the art of teaching French, which he might suppose "came by nature;" and being besides unacquainted with English, he was unable to explain to his scholars of my family, any rules of grammar, whether general or particular. That I may dismiss him with honour in this my mention of him, I will recite an epigram of his composition at the beginning of the Revolution:

Of dancing-masters and music-masters I need not speak; their art is at the end of their fingers or of their toes. I had some trouble in managing the temper of the professor of the first of these arts, who was a Gascon; and the natural pride of the professor of music, who was a noble: but, by the help of some tact united with good-will, I obtained my end, which was, that they should depart contented. The climate did not permit dancing lessons to be taken, except in the winter.

I do not advise any one, habituated to the climate of England, and in good health, to come abroad for the sake of climate. Charles II. was certainly right when he said, one may in England be out of doors more days in the year, and more hours in the day, than in any other country. I quoted this saying to a friend, who replied, "Mais c'est toujours en souffrant;"[51] and, being accustomed to heat, he reckoned all suffering from that cause as nothing: he had been in England, and recollected how his nose was bitten, and his fingers benumbed by the frost. A friend at Avignon called on me in the middle of the day, having crept along the shady side of the streets. It is there the custom in summer to keep the windows shut during the heat of the day. I complained to my visitant of this practice, as depriving one of air when gasping for it. "Mais que voulez-vous? l'air est en feu."[52] I put the thermometer out at a north window, and it rose two degrees. During the greatest heat of the hot summer of 1820, I observed the thermometer pretty regularly at midnight, and found it to stand at 80 Fahrenheit.

One may rise early, and enjoy the coolness of the morning: true; but for this end it is necessary to go to bed early, and be deprived of the coolness of the evening. I knew, however, one man who had the good-sense and resolution to dispose of his day during summer in the following manner: he went to bed at midnight, rose at four in the morning, took his exercise, transacted his affairs, eat his déjeuné à la fourchette, as may be supposed, with a good appetite, and went to bed again at mid-day: at four p. m. he rose again, made his toilette, eat his dinner, and went into society, till the end of the second of the two days which he thus contrived to form out of twenty-four hours. I have been told that such is the practice of the English in the East Indies.

The plague of bugs may be avoided by care and cleanliness: the defence against gnats is a gause net surrounding the bed; but wo be to those who find one or more gnats enclosed within the net itself, as happens not unfrequently from the carelessness of the femme de chambre: the hum of the insect, and the dread of his attack, deprive you of sleep: there is no remedy but to wait till he settles upon the face; and then, while he is busy with his first bite, with an expectant and prepared hand to crush him. Flies are also very troublesome in these envied regions of the south; but flies are not like those Cassiuses, the gnats;—"they sleep o'nights."

The bise or north wind, coming from the frozen Alps, following the course of the Rhone, and spreading wide to right and left, is very delightful and refreshing during the summer at Avignon: but, in the winter, it penetrates even to the marrow of the bones, and sometimes, for several days together, blows with such violence, that people are afraid to walk the streets, lest they should be knocked on the head by falling tiles or chimneys. This bise is supposed to render the climate healthy: the Avignonais have a proverb:—"Avenio ventosa; si ventosa, fastidiosa; si non ventosa, venenosa." How far it is "venenosa," I have but too much reason to know.

The Rhone is sometimes frozen over at Avignon: I have seen people walk across it on the ice. The cold during part of the winter is sometimes greater than that of Paris; and I have seen the cold of the hyver moyen[53] of Paris marked, on a French thermometer, as two degrees of Reaumur lower, that is stronger, than the cold of the hyver moyen of London. All the world knows that in summer it is much hotter at Paris than at London: the vine bears witness to it; but both heat and cold are tempered to England by passing over the sea.

To sum up all that I have to say at present on the subject of climate, I believe lat. 45, half way between the pole and the equator, to be, all other circumstances being equal, the best of the climes that are "mortalibus ægris Munere concessæ Divôm." Habit reconciles both to cold and heat. One consideration may not be unimportant to families that wish to economize: cold is costly. Returning into France from Italy, I find the difference between the rent of a house in Naples and that of a house in a country town, to be filled up by the expense of firing; and, at the beginning of my first winter, am almost ruined in manteaus, great coats, pelisses, blankets, and other flannels.

A country town in France is better supplied with society than a country town in England, inasmuch as the French country gentry do not disdain to live in a country town. All of them have an hotel, an apartment, or at least a pied à terre, as they called it, in the largest country town in their neighbourhood, and resort thither during the winter. From the time of the wheat harvest, which in the south is towards the end of June, till the time for planting is ended, they not only live, but are very busy in the country. The practice of letting land for the half of the produce compels them to be on the spot to take charge of their own share: but, in bad weather, and during the long evenings, they seek shelter in the town. Here the members of the ancient noblesse, now without fortune, without privilege, still viewed by the many with sentiments of political dislike,—maintain their superiority over men, their equals in moral honesty, more wealthy and better instructed than themselves. And how do they maintain it? By manners. It is admirable to see with what grace and ease, without arrogating any thing to themselves or derogating from others, without art or design,—they assert their dignity, and contrive that it be recognised by those with whom they have to do. Some of those who have not the advantage, if such it may be called, of noble birth, endeavour to imitate, while others affect to despise, these manners, which throw such a charm over society; but it is impossible to despise, and very difficult to imitate them: they seem to result from an early, an almost perpetual consciousness of self-importance, corrected by a constant intercourse with others entitled to equal respect and deference. The manners of military men, more frank, and open, and manly than those of the noblesse, want the polish attained by the latter: for military men, while they derive confidence from the glory of their profession, are chiefly conversant with those whom they command or obey. "The depôt of good manners is to be found with the nobles of ancient families," said one of them to me.

Before the revolution there were in France twenty-seven thousand families of the noblesse. By the charte the nobles of imperial creation preserve their titles, the ancient nobles resume theirs. Of titles, however, very little use is made in conversation; the little particle de answers all demands of noble self-love; and even a Duc or Duchesse is contented to be addressed, in familiar parlance, as Monsieur de —— or Madame de ——. This little particle de multiplies itself with astonishing rapidity, like the English addition Esq.; and the act by which it is assumed is no more contested in France, than that which, with us, niches a man of merit between knight and gentleman. Three or four de were brought into the world at Avignon, during my stay there.

What shows the practice of unauthorised assumption of the de to be by no means so novel as its censurers pretended, is, that I found the de sometimes to precede names which signified trades: of these there are many in all countries; whereas the de ought only to indicate the terre, or estate, like the d'Igby of my maternal ancestors, and can with propriety be used for no other purpose.

But the ambition of nominal distinction was not always thus cheaply to be gratified, if I may believe the feeling lament of an old noble, that is a noble of old family, "Such an one fancies, some fine morning, that he is a count or marquis: he calls himself so: the world laughs."—"But the title passes current?" A shrug of the shoulders gave me to understand that the subject was too distressing to be further pursued. O chivalry, thou act fallen on grievous,—on money-loving times!

The title of Baronet is insignificant, having its origin too in a paltry sum of money paid to a needy king. The list (for it is not an order,) contains names that do honour to it: yet I heard in my youth a young man of one of the first families in Ireland, afterwards Marquess of ——, talk peevishly of "a parcel of d——d baronets." In endeavouring to be superior to their equals, or equal to their superiors, they undertake a task which must make them unacceptable to both parties. The ancient noblesse of France has neither feudal rights nor political power; but it has its origin in what may be called the heroic ages of Europe: the peerage of France must look up to the nobles with respect; and the people, that it may honour them, asks only to rank them among its friends.

It is a pity that the nobles should be generally reproached with want of instruction: many of them plead in excuse that they are enfans de la revolution, born at a time when their education was of necessity neglected. I mentioned this excuse to an avocat. "Bah! they well know that their fathers were as ignorant as themselves." The avocat's argument was not conclusive; the nobles of the present day might, but for the unsettled time of their youth, have partaken of the gradual improvement in knowledge which pervades all classes; and the remark, "je suis meilleur gentilhomme que mon père, parceque j'ai une génération de plus,"[54] might have applied to other advantages than that of counting one generation more. The French nobles have now no longer that which, according to Juvenal, makes ignorance tolerable: let us hope they will avail themselves of their diminished wealth to acquire that learning, which, according to the proverb, though I do not believe it, is better than house and land.

The practice of letting farms to a métayer, who retains a share of the produce, and pays his rent with the remainder, is resorted to and continued from necessity. The farmer has not capital enough to stock a farm. If the proprietor, after having made the necessary advances for the occupation of the land, were to let the whole for a money rent, the farmer would soon be in arrears, and would end by running away. Métairie I suppose to be derived from the Italian metá, which signifies half. The landlord's share is however not always in this proportion: on fertile soils, and on account of rich products, he receives more than where more labour is required to reap an equal or less benefit. I believe the half to be the minimum.

After having passed through nearly the whole length of Europe, with a taste prepared by a youth passed, as Gibbon says, "in port and prejudice;" and in the same college too, I venture to assert, that wine is good in proportion as the country in which it is produced is near the all-enlivening sun. The wine of Champagne, which cannot remain for a minute and a half in the glass without growing flat; that of Burgundy, which is hardly ever found but in an acid state; that of Bordeaux, "claret for boys;"—not any one of these wines is to be compared (not for strength only, but for flavour also,) to the wines of the Rhone and of Provence. Such is my opinion: experto credat who will.

It may amuse my reader to learn that he may perhaps have been drinking French wine, when he little suspected that it lay concealed in "humble port." A trade, which in its first stage is not contraband, whatever it may be in its second, is carried on between the French shores of the Mediterranean and Portugal: wines are shipped off to Oporto, which, by the help of brandy and other manipulation, become good port wine for the London market.

I was told by a négociant, an intelligent man, not a wine-merchant, that it was the wish of the wine-growers of France, that wine imported into England should pay a duty ad valorem, on the price, not on the quantity. He did not expect that the English government should be content to receive a less amount of duty on the same quantity of wine, the mean quality supposed the same: but he asserted that wines of inferior quality, which could not be imported in the face of the duty per gallon, would then find their way; that the consumption of wine would be much increased; and the English government, as well as the French wine-dealer and proprietor of vineyards, would both be benefited. As fiscal regulations have spoiled our malt liquor, it would be but fair to allow to those who are now ruining their health with rum and water, the pleasure of drinking sometimes a bottle of small French wine. What? A bottle of Burgundy at a farmer's ordinary? Gentlemen travellers drinking claret? So much are men the slaves of habit, that the supposition appears extravagant; and, after a twelvemonth, the thing itself would be no more astonishing than it is now in France.

The French, who have seen the atmosphere of smoke in which London is enveloped, and the sea-coal pouring its volumes of smoke up the chimney, have disseminated throughout France a certain horror of coal fires. There are, near Lyons, mines of coal of a quality superior to any I have yet seen, like the Wednesbury, but better. I had some difficulty in making the blacksmith comprehend what ought to be the form of such machines as grate, poker, fender. "Things by their name I call;" though to my blacksmith I was obliged to use every sort of periphrasis. My poker was made with a hook at the end of it; the fender had a handle to it; the bars of the grate were too small and too near each other. The hook of the poker was soon straightened in the fire: of the fender handle I was contented to declare, "il n'y a pas de mal à cela:"[55] as the bars of my grate, though near, were not thick; they did not intercept more heat than usual.

Taking the precaution to have a wood fire in my second salon, I ventured to invite my friends to see my fire de charbon de terre. They were much surprised and pleased. "Il n'y a pas de mauvaise odeur: ce feu se fait respecter: quelle chaleur!"[56] The combined advantages of greater heat and less cost, (for the coal fire was maintained at about half the expense of a wood fire,) procured imitators. The general commanding the department had a grate set up: the smith made it after his own faulty model, declaring, no doubt, that it was à l'Anglaise: the general was, however, well satisfied, telling me that the coal fire warmed the three rooms of his apartment as well as a wood fire in each and every one of them. The woods have been especially ravaged during an æra of insecure possession; and fire-wood, always an expensive article, is generally, throughout France, become dearer than formerly, except in the neighbourhood of great forests.

I will endeavour to enable any one to judge how far it may be worth his while to come to reside in France from motives of economy. With his motives for being economical I have nothing to do: any one may be economical at home who pleases; but it does not please some people to be economical at home: others wish to have more for the same money. The French are sometimes puzzled to make out why the English come abroad; perhaps the English are sometimes equally puzzled themselves: but, with reference to economy, sometimes the English seem to them to be travelling for the sake of spending money; sometimes to be staying in France for the purpose of saving it: the riches as well as the high prices of England are exaggerated; the latter to a degree that would make the riches to be merely nominal: then, the difference between French and English prices is supposed to be so great, that the saving, by living in France, must be enormous. Many English have, at first, no clearer notions than the French on these subjects.

The price of almost every article, the produce of agricultural or manufacturing industry, has been increased one-third, some say two-fifths, in France since the beginning of the Revolution: the taxes have been trebled. We know that, within the last thirty years, prices and taxes have been augmented in England at about the same rates; so that, on both sides of the water, the proportion has been preserved: but the English knew very little of France during the war; whereas the French knew England by their emigrants, who reported truly the high prices then prevalent: thus some unsettled or erroneous opinions on domestic economy may be accounted for. I left England while paper currency was still in force, and before prices were lowered as since they have been: my estimate must be corrected accordingly.

The result of between three and four years experience is, that about one-sixth is saved by living, not in Paris, but in a provincial town in France, or that a franc will go as far as a shilling. Set against this saving the expenses of the journey, and the saving will not be great to those who do not retrench in their mode of life, but live in France in the same style as at home. The exchange on bills drawn on England may be favourable; but some little money sticks in every hand through which money passes, which balances this advantage.

House-rent is higher in France than in England; fuel much dearer: some manufactured articles, as woollen cloth for coats, and linen or cotton for shirts, are equally dear: colonial produce, as sugar and coffee, is of a variable price, but not much cheaper: tea is cheaper, as the Americans supply it, or England with a remission of the duty. But there are no assessed taxes, no poor-rates: provisions I found to be cheaper by about one-third than I had left them in England; and my younger children, instead of small beer, with half a glass of wine each after dinner, now drank wine, with discretion indeed, but at discretion. The more numerous my family, the greater was the advantage to me of this diminution of the daily expense of food.

Yet I calculate that at the end of forty-two months, including what the journey to Avignon cost me, and the difference between the price at which my furniture was bought, and that at which it was sold,—I had spent, within one twentieth, as much as it would have cost me to live in my county town in England with the the same establishment and in the same manner. The smaller the income annually expended, the greater in proportion will be the saving; because it is chiefly on the necessary articles of living, that expense is spared; but a man of large, or even of moderate fortune, will hardly think it worth his while to dwell many years in a foreign country merely for the sake of saving five pounds in a hundred. The less the distance to which he travels, and the longer his stay; the more he becomes acquainted with the mode of dealing, and learns what are just prices;—the greater proportionably will be the savings of the economizing resident. A saving of five per cent is at least not a loss. Wise men should not entertain extravagant expectations, and prudent men should know what they are about to undertake. Those who are neither wise nor prudent had better stay at home: I do not write for such; but to give to family men such advice as I found no one capable of giving me; but which, through much toil and cost and peril, I had obtained the faculty of offering to others.

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