e
consider how little they have been accustomed to travellers for
some years past.

A great number of the best houses by the roadside and in the towns
were shut up, and seemed to be abandoned. Very few of the churches
appeared to be open, many of them were pulled down, and none that
were not considerably damaged; but the country was throughout in a
state of high cultivation, although there was apparently a scarcity
of men at work. This is to be accounted for by the encouragement
which the late dearness of bread has given to the farmers, who are
become, by a variety of circumstances, extremely wealthy. They are
one of the very few descriptions of people who have profited by the
Revolution. Very many of them have purchased lands, and this they
were enabled to do almost for nothing by the depreciation of
assignats, for an enormous nominal value of which they sold the
produce of their farms; and this paper was received from them for
the sum it represented, in payment for the estates of the
_ci-devant_ seigneurs and other confiscated property. I am told
there have been repeated instances of the basest ingratitude on
their part, in denouncing their landlords; and, on the contrary,
that many of them have given proofs of the strongest attachment to
them.

Provisions are in abundance, and at a very moderate price. Common
bread is little more than two sous, and butchers' meat from five to
eight sous the pound.

I have not observed any want of specie in circulation; never yet
have I found any difficulty in getting change upon the purchase of
any article, nor any such thing as paper money produced in such
transactions. The exhausted state and the degree of distress which
I could discover in this country, I must confess, fell short of the
expectation which the various species of plunder, exaction, and
cruelty, which it has for several years submitted to, had impressed
upon my mind.

Between Calais and Paris, scarcely any troops were to be met with.

The scene being so perfectly new to me, and having little or no
intercourse with any one here, except our own society, I was some
time in Paris before I could form any opinion of the state of
affairs, and the sentiments of the people. The streets seemed
crowded, the shops tolerably well supplied