walled on each side, forming one solid mass of artificial road, carried across the vallies to the height of six, seven, or eight feet, and never less than 50 wide. There is a bridge of a single arch, and a causeway to it, truly magnificent; we have not an idea of what such a road is in England. The traffic of the way, however, demands no such exertions; one-third of the breadth is beaten, onethird rough, and one-third covered with weeds. In 36 miles, I have met one cabriolet, half a dozen carts, and some old women with asses. For what all this waste of treasure?-In Languedoc, it is true, these works are not done by corvées; but there is an injustice in levying the amount not far short of them. The money is raised by tailles, and, in making the assessment, lands held by a noble tenure are so much eased, and others by a base one so burthened, that 120 arpents in this neighbourhood held by the former, pay 90 liv. and 400 possessed by a plebeian right, which ought proportionally to pay 300 liv. is, instead of that, assessed at 1400 liv. At Narbonne, the canal' which joins that of Languedoc, deserves attention; it is a very fine work, and will, they say, be finished next month. -36 miles.

The 24th. Women without stockings, and many without shoes; but if their feet are poorly clad they have a superb consolation in walking upon magnificent causeways: the new road is 50 feet wide, and 50 more digged away or destroyed to make it.

The vintage itself can hardly be such a scene of activity and animation as this universal one of treading out the corn, with which all the towns and villages in Languedoc are now alive. The corn is all roughly stacked around a dry firm spot, where great numbers of mules and horses are driven on a trot round a centre, a woman holding the reins, and another, or a girl or two, with whips drive; the men supply and clear the floor; other parties are dressing, by throwing the corn into the air for the wind to blow away the chaff. Every soul is employed, and with such an air of cheerfulness, that the people seem as well pleased with their labour, as the farmer himself with his great

1 La Robine.

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heaps of wheat. The scene is uncommonly animated and joyous. I stopped and alighted often to see their method; I was always very civilly treated, and my wishes for a good price for the farmer, and not too good a one for the poor, well received. This method, which entirely saves barns, depends absolutely on climate: from my leaving Bagnere de Luchon to this moment, all through Catalonia, Roussillon, and this part of Languedoc, there has been nothing like rain; but one unvarying clear bright sky and burning sun, yet not at all suffocating, or to me even unpleasant. I asked whether they were not sometimes caught in the rain? they said, very rarely indeed; but if rain did come, it is seldom more than a heavy shower, which a hot sun quickly succeeds and dries every thing speedily.

The canal of Languedoc' is the capital feature of all this country. The mountain through which it pierces is insulated, in the midst of an extended valley, and only half a mile from the road. It is a noble and stupendous work, goes through the hill about the breadth of three toises, and was digged without shafts.

2

Leave the road, and crossing the canal, follow it to Beziers; nine sluice-gates let the water down the hill to join the river at the town.-A noble work! The port is broad enough for four large vessels to lie abreast; the greatest of them carries from 90 to 100 tons. Many of them were at the quay, some in motion, and every sign of an animated business. This is the best sight I have seen in France. Here Lewis XIV. thou art truly great !-Here, with a generous and benignant hand, thou dispensest ease and wealth to thy people!-Si sic omnia, thy name would indeed have been revered. To effect this noble work, of uniting the two seas, less money was expended than to besiege Turin, or to seize Strasbourg like a robber. Such an employment of the revenues of a great kingdom is the only laudable way of a monarch's acquiring immortality; all other means make their names survive with those only of the incendiaries, robbers, and violators of mankind.

1 The canal de Languedoc or du Midi, called also Le canal des deux Mers, which unites the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, was created under Louis XIV. by Riquet.

2 Béziers (Hérault).

The canal passes through the river for about half a league, separated from it by walls which are covered in floods; and then turns off for Cette. Dine at Beziers. Knowing that Mons. l'Abbé Rozier,1 the celebrated editor of the Journal Physique, and who is now publishing a dictionary of husbandry, which in France has much reputation, lived and farmed near Beziers, I enquired at the inn the way to his house. They told me that he had left Beziers two years, but that the house was to be seen from the street, and accordingly shewed it me from something of a square open on one side to the country; adding, that it belonged now to a Mons. de Rieuse, who had purchased the estate. of the Abbé. To view the farm of a man celebrated for his writings, was an object, as it would, at least, enable me, in reading his book, to understand better the allusions he might make to the soil, situation, and other circumstances. I was sorry to hear, at the table d'hôte, much ridicule thrown on the Abbé Rozier's husbandry, that it had beaucoup de fantasie mais rien solide; in particular, they treated his paving his vineyards as a ridiculous circumstance. Such an experiment seemed remarkable, and I was glad to hear it, that I might desire to see these paved vineyards. The Abbé here, as a farmer, has just that character which every man will be sure to have who departs from the methods of his neighbours; for it is not in the nature of countrymen, that any body should come among them who can presume with impunity to think for themselves. I asked why he left the country? and they gave me a curious anecdote of the bishop of Beziers cutting a road through the Abbé's farm, at the expence of the' province, to lead to the house of his (the bishop's) mistress, which occasioned such a quarrel that Mons. Rozier could stay no longer in the country. This is a pretty feature of a government: that a man is to be forced to sell his estate, and driven out of a country, because bishops make love. I suppose to their neighbours wives, as no other love is fashionable in France. Which of my neighbours' wives will tempt the bishop of Norwich to make a road through my farm, and drive me to sell Bradfield ?—

1 Rozier (François), an ecclesiastic and agricultural writer, born 1754, killed at the siege of Lyons 1793.

I give my authority for this anecdote, the chat of a table d'hôte; it is as likely to be false as true; but Languedocian bishops are certainly not English ones.-Mons. de Rieuse received me politely, and satisfied as many of my enquiries as he could; for he knew little more of the Abbe's husbandry than common report, and what the farm itself told him, As to paved vineyards, there was no such thing; the report must have taken rise from a vineyard of Burgundy grapes, which the Abbé planted in a new manner; he set them in a curved form, in a foss, covering them only with flints instead of earth; this succeeded well. I walked over the farm, which is beautifully situated, on the slope and top of a hill, which commands Beziers, its rich vale, its navigation, and a fine accompanyment of mountains.

Beziers has a fine promenade; and is becoming, they say, a favourite residence for the English, preferring the air to that of Montpellier. Take the road to Pezenas.' It leads up a hill, which commands, for some time, a view of the Mediterranean. Through all this country, but particularly in the olive grounds, the cricket (cicala) makes a constant, sharp, monotonous noise; a more odious companion on the road can hardly be imagined. Pezenas opens on a very fine country, a vale of six or eight leagues extent all cultivated; a beautiful mixture of vines, mulberries, olives, towns, and scattered houses, with a great deal of fine lucerne; the whole bounded by gentle hills, cultivated to their tops.-At supper, at the table d'hôte. we were waited on by a female without shoes or stockings, exquisitely ugly, and diffusing odours not of roses: there were, however, a croix de St. Louis, and two or three mercantile-looking people that prated with her very familiarly : at an ordinary of farmers, at the poorest and remotest market village in England, such an animal would not be allowed by the landlord to enter his house; or by the guests their room. -32 miles.

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2

The 25th. The road, in crossing a valley to and from a

1 Pézenas (Hérault).

2 An order created by Louis XIV., and conferred only on officers, naval and military. Suppressed by the Convention, 1792, re-established under the Restoration, this order was finally abolished in July, 1830.

bridge, is a magnificent walled causeway, more than a mile long, ten yards wide, and from eight to twelve feet high; with stone posts on each side at every six yards—a prodigious work. I know nothing more striking to a traveller than the roads of Languedoc: we have not in England a conception of such exertions; they are splendid and superb; and if I could free my mind of the recollection of the unjust taxation which pays them, I should travel with admiration at the magnificence displayed by the states of this province. The police of these roads is however execrable—for I scarcely meet a cart but the driver is asleep in it.

3

Taking the road to Montpellier, pass through a pleasing country; and by another immense walled causeway, twelve yards broad and three high, leading close to the sea. To Pijan,1 and near Frontignan 2 and Montbasin, famous for their muscat wines.-Approach Montpellier; the environs, for near a league, are delicious, and more highly ornamented than any thing I have seen in France.-Villas well built, clean, and comfortable, with every appearance of wealthy owners, are spread thickly through the country. They are, in general, pretty square buildings; some very large. Montpellier, with the air rather of a great capital than of a provincial town, covers a hill that swells proudly to the view. But on entering it, you experience a disappointment from narrow, ill-built, crooked streets, but full of people, and apparently alive with business; yet there is no considerable manufacture in the place; the principal are verdigrease, silk handkerchiefs, blankets, perfumes and liqueurs. The great object for a stranger to view is the promenade or square, for it partakes of both, called the Perou. There is a magnificent aqueduct on three tires of arches for supplying the city with water, from a hill at a considerable distance; a very noble work; a chateau d'eau receives the water in a circular bason, from which it falls into an external reservoir, to supply the city, and the jets d'eau that cool the air of a garden below, the whole in a fine square considerably elevated above the surrounding ground, walled in with a ballustrade, and other mural decorations, and in the centre a good equestrian statue of 'Pignan (Hérault). 2 (Hérault.) 3 Montbazin (Hérault).

4 Place du Peyrou.