or the management of the
farms which they possessed. Their houses are neat and comfortable in the
most remarkable degree, and the farm-steadings as extensive and
substantial as in the most improved districts of England. The ground is
cultivated with the utmost care, and the industry of the peasants is
conspicuous in every part of agricultural management. It was impossible,
in comparing these prosperous dwellings with the decayed villages in
most other parts of the country, not to discern, in the clearest manner,
the salutary influence of individual security upon the labouring
classes; and the tendency which the certainty of enjoying the fruits of
their labour has, not merely in increasing their present industry, but
awakening those wishes of improvement, and engendering those habits of
comfort; which are the only true foundation of public happiness.

During the revolution, when the peasants of all the adjoining estates
violently dispossessed their landlords of their property; when every
adjoining chateau exhibited a scene of desolation and ruin; the peasants
of this estate were remarkable for their moderate and steady conduct; so
far from themselves pillaging their seigneur, they formed a league for
his defence "--Ils l'ont soutenus," as they themselves expressed
it--_and he continued throughout, and is now in the quiet possession of
his great estate_. It is not perhaps going too far to say, that had the
peasants throughout the country been treated with the same indulgence,
and suffered to enjoy the same property, as in this delightful district,
France would have been spared from all the horrors and all the
sufferings of her revolution.

From Foudrain to La Fere, the country is, for the most part, flat; and
the road, which is shaded by lofty trees, skirts the edge of a great
forest, which stretches as far as the eye can reach to the left; and
joins with the forest of Villars Coterets. For many miles the road is
bordered by fruit-trees, and the cottages have a most comfortable
thriving appearance. To St Quentin the face of the country is flat,
though the ridge over which you pass is high; the villages have an
appearance of progress and opulence about them, which is rarely to be
met with in other parts of France. All the peasantry carry on
manufactures in their own houses; and probably their gains are very
considerable, as their houses are much more neat and comfortable than in
districts which are solely agricultural, an