g duel between the Church
and the Calvinists. Tonneins, once a curious 'double city' of the
middle ages, was destroyed in the seventeenth century by Louis XIII.
for its fidelity to the Huguenot cause. Nerac, where Jeanne d'Albret and
the two Margots held their gay and gallant courts, and Henry of Navarre
established his headquarters during 'the Lovers' War,' suffered as
severely for the like cause under Louis XIV. The revocation of the Edict
of Nantes sent its most industrious inhabitants into exile, not a few of
them crossing the Atlantic to join the Huguenot colonies in New York and
in the Carolinas. 'But the Revolution of 1789 did Nerac more harm,' said
an intelligent tradesman of the picturesque little city to me, 'than the
Revocation. The Revocation drove away many honest people from Nerac, but
the Revolution brought here a great many rogues.' The country around
Nerac is extremely fertile, and great prizes were to be picked up here
during the decade of proscription and confiscation. The Garenne, one of
the loveliest public parks in France, in which a beautiful fountain
sparkles and murmurs beneath two lofty elms planted by Henry of Navarre
and Marguerite de Valois, was actually bought during the First Consulate
by the city for a little over five thousand francs, or two hundred
pounds sterling. The war of 1791 against 'privileges' soon became in
Nerac, as elsewhere in France, a war against property. The immediate
effect of this was not, what we are constantly told it was, to increase
the wealth of France by 'redistributing' it amongst the active and
industrious classes. It was, on the contrary, to diminish the wealth of
France by lowering the real value of property. This is clearly shown by
the extraordinary pains which Napoleon took to enforce respect for the
rights of property as soon as he grasped the supreme power in the State.
But one comes everywhere upon striking local proofs of it. At Najac in
the Department of the Aveyron, for example, the obliging hotel-keeper
will give you the key of one of the most magnificent ruined castles in
Southern France, which, with its grand donjon, and all the massive
circle of its walls and ramparts, was seized and sold, during the
Terror, for _twelve francs_. The purchaser made a deal of money by
converting the castle into a quarry, and when law and order were
restored, he gladly parted with his very dubious title for the highly
respectable advance on his investment of 1,500 fra