e met with;
few woods are seen to vary the uniformity of the view; and the level
surface of the ground is only broken at intervals by the long rows of
fruit-trees, which intersect the country in different directions, or the
tall avenues of elms between which the _chaussees_ are placed.

These elm trees would give a magnificent appearance to the roads, both
from their age and the immense length during which they fringe its
sides, were it not that they are uniformly clipt to the very top, for
firewood, by the peasantry, and that all their natural beauty is in
consequence destroyed. The elm, indeed, pushes out its shoots to replace
the branches which have been destroyed, and fringes the lofty stem with
a cluster of foliage; but as soon as these young branches have become
large, they too are in their turn sacrificed to the same purpose. When
seen from a distance, accordingly, these trees resemble tall May-poles
with tufts at their tops, and are hardly to be distinguished from the
Lombardy poplars, which, in many parts of the country, line the sides of
the principal roads.

One most remarkable circumstance in the agricultural districts of
France, is here to be seen in its full extent. The people do not dwell
in detached cottages, placed in the centre of their farms or their
properties, as in all parts of England; they live together in aged
villages or boroughs, often at the distance of two or three miles from
the place of their labour, and wholly separated from the farms which
they are employed in cultivating. It is no uncommon thing accordingly,
to see a farmer leaving a little town in the morning with his ploughs
and horses, to go to his piece of ground, which lies many miles from the
place of his residence.

This circumstance, which exists more or less in every part of France, is
characteristic of the state in which the people were placed in those
remote periods, when their habits of life were originally formed. It
indicates that popular degradation and public insecurity, when the poor
were compelled to unite themselves in villages or towns for protection
from the banditti, whom the government was unable to restrain, or from
the more desolating oppression of feudal power. In every country of
Europe, in which the feudal tyranny long subsisted; in Spain, in France,
in Poland, and in Hungary, this custom has prevailed to a certain
extent, and the remains of it are still to be seen in the remoter parts
of Scotland. It is i