h they were subjected during
the despotic governments which succeeded the first years of the
revolution. These contributions were levied by the governors of
districts in the most arbitrary manner. The arrondissement was assessed
at a certain sum by the government, or a certain contribution for the
support of the war was imposed; and the sum was proportioned out among
the different inhabitants, according to the discretion of the collector.
Any appearance of comfort, accordingly, among the peasantry, was
immediately followed by an increased contribution, and heavier taxes;
and hence the people never ventured to make any display of their
increased wealth in their dwellings, or in any article of their
expenditure, which might attract, the notice of the collectors of the
imperial revenue. The burdens to which they were subjected, moreover,
especially during the last years of the war, were extremely severe,
arising both from the enormous sums requisite to save their sons from
the conscription, and the heavy unequal contributions to which they were
subjected.

From these causes, the division of landed property has not yet produced
that striking amelioration in the habits and present comfort of the
peasantry, which generally attend this important measure; and their
wealth is rather hoarded up, after the eastern custom, for future,
emergencies or spent in the support of an early marriage; and never
lavished in the fearless enjoyment of present opulence.

In some respects, however, their appearance evidently bears the mark of
the improvement in their situation. Their dress is upon the whole neat
and comfortable, covered in general by a species of smock frock of a
light blue colour, and exhibiting none of that miserable appearance
which Mr Young described as characterising the labouring classes during
his time. They evidently had the aspect of being well fed, and both in
their figures and dress, afforded a striking contrast to the wretched
and decrepid inhabitants of the towns, in whom the real poverty of the
people, under the old regime, was still perceptible. In some of these
towns, the appearance of the beggars, their extraordinary figures, and
tattered dress, exhibited a spectacle which would have been
inconceivably ludicrous, were it not for the melancholy ideas of abject
poverty which it necessarily conveyed.

About twenty miles from Soissons, the road passes through the
magnificent forest of Villars Coterets, which, in t