here was sold " au son de la voix; "1 in other words, the accepted standard of measurement was the compass of human lungs. The stretch of ground reached by a man's voice sold for a few francs. Crops are now replacing the scant herbage of the salt marsh, and the familiar characteristic of the landscape, the shepherd's stilts, are already almost a thing of the past. The échasse, or in patois, chanque, a word dating from the English occupation, and derived by some authorities from "shank," is naturally discarded as the morass is transformed into solid ground. Six hundred thousand hectares of Landes planted with sea-pines produce resin to the annual value of fifteen million francs.

This noble tree, the pinus maritima, is here achieving a climatic revolution similar to the changes effected by the febrifugal Eucalyptus in the once fever-stricken plains of Algeria. The cork-tree, or chêne-liège, has proved equally effective. Many arid tracts are now covered with magnificent forests of recent growth, not only affording a source of revenue, but transforming the aspect and climatic conditions of the country. Only an inconsiderable proportion of the Landes remains in its former state.

Arthur Young's second journey takes him through Brittany and Anjou. Here also advance has been so rapid within our own time that the traveller revisiting these provinces finds his notes of ten or fifteen years ago utterly at fault.

66

Landes-landes-landes (wastes, wastes, wastes), "a country possessing nothing but privilege and poverty," such is the verdict passed by the Suffolk squire on Brittany in 1788. The privileges were swept away with a stroke of the pen twelve months later; the poverty, though an evil not to be so summarily dealt with, has gradually given way to a happier state of things Of no French province can the economist now write more hopefully.

Were I to renew my acquaintance with the friendly tenant farmers of Nozay in the Loire Inférieure, described by me elsewhere, or the hospitable freeholders of Hennebont in the Morbihan, I should without doubt find many changes for the better. The sabots into which the bare feet of both master and men, mistress and maids, were thrust a few years ago, have been 1 See E. Réclus, “Géographie de la France.”

replaced by shoes and stockings. Wheaten bread and butcher's meat find their way to many a farmhouse table. Cookery has improved. Wages have risen. Dwellings are built on a more wholesome plan.1 Intellectual progress, whilst hardly keeping pace with the spread of material well-being, is yet satisfactory in the extreme. When interrogated by travellers of our own day in French, the Breton peasant would shake his head and pass on. Only the ebbing generation now remains ignorant of its mother tongue.

One curious omission must have struck most readers of the French travels. This quick and accurate observer who takes note of every object that meets his eye, who traverses the three historic highroads, diverging to the right and to the left in quest of information, never by any chance whatever mentions a village school. Had such schools existed we may be sure that he would have visited them, bequeathing us in a few graphic sentences an outline of their plan and working. The education of the people was a dead letter in France at the time he wrote. Here and there the curé or frères Ignorantins would get the children together and teach them to recite the catechism or spell a credo and paternoster. Writing, arithmetic, much less the teaching of French, were deemed unnecessary. The Convention during its short régime (1792-1796) decreed a comprehensive scheme of primary instruction, lay, gratuitous and obligatory, but the initiative was not followed up, and the first law on the subject carried into effect was that of 1833. How slowly matters advanced in Brittany may be gathered from an isolated fact. So late as 1872 two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Ille and Vilaine could neither read nor write. It remained for the Third Republic to remove this stigma, and within the last eighteen years schools have sprung up in all directions. The department just named numbered in 1884 between seven and eight hundred alone.2

See M. H. Baudrillart, "Revue des Deux Mondes," 15th Oct. and 15th Nov., 1884.

2 During the year spent by the present writer in Western France (1875-6), the following announcement often met the eye at Nantes: "Ecrivain publique, 10 centimes par lettre." Women servants who could read, much less write, were then an exception. The free nightschools opened by the municipal council rendered infinite service before

Agricultural progress has been more rapid. Rotation crops and four-course farming have long superseded the ruinous method of sowing the same crops, generally buckwheat or oats, for several years in succession, followed by an equally long period of fallow. Arthur Young's corner-stone of good farming, a fine piece of turnips, may now be seen here as at his native Bradfield. Artificial manures and machinery are used instead of the dried leaves and antiquated implements once in vogue. Upper Brittany has won for itself the name of the granary of western France, from its abundance of corn. The Breton breed of horses and cattle is second to none throughout the country. Between the years 1840 and 1880 upwards of 400,000 hectares of wastes have been brought under cultivation, and the process of clearing goes steadily on.

To many causes are due this transformation of a region so long stationary. Foremost stands the great agricultural college of Grand Jouan, near Nozay, in the Loire Inférieure, founded in 1830. Our Suffolk farmer sighed for such an institution, and predicted the advantages that would accrue generally from training schools of practical and theoretic agriculture. Such schools, alike on a large or modest scale, the latter called fermeécole, are now scattered all over France, Grand Jouan, precursor of the rest, still retaining pre-eminence. Its object is twofold: firstly, to form good farmers, gardeners, land-surveyors, and agricultural chemists; secondly, to develop the progress of agriculture by the introduction of the newest machinery and the most improved methods, by farming high, in fact, for the benefit of outsiders. The curriculum occupies two years and a half; day students, many of whom belong to the peasant class, are received at a cost of two hundred francs yearly.

"It is Grand Jouan that teaches us to farm," remarked a tenant farmer of the neighbourhood to the present writer in 1875, when showing, with no little pride, a field of turnips grown upon a layer of bone phosphate.

The spread of railways, the creation of roads and other facilities of communication, must be taken into account, also the

the passing of the great educational act of 1886. At the School Board election, Hastings, 1889, many voters could neither read nor write!

great advantages enjoyed by Brittany in respect of climate. Magnolias and camellias flourish out of doors all the year round at Nantes, and arrived at St. Pol de Léon (Finistère) in November, the tourist finds the soft air and warm sunshine of the south. The fruit and vegetables of Roscoff and other equally favoured spots produce sums that would have appeared fabulous a few years ago, much more in Arthur Young's time. The strawberries of Plougastel alone bring an annual return of half a million francs. These market gardens, varying in extent from two or three to twenty-five hectares, are the property of peasant owners, but here as elsewhere a great variety of land tenure is found.

Métayage, whilst existing in the Côtes du Nord and the Loire Inférieure, is not regarded with much favour by the Breton. Tenant farming and ownership are more congenial to his somewhat uncompromising temperament. The domaine congéable,2 a contract dating from the twelfth century, and of universal acceptance fifty years ago, is now found only in Finistère and the Morbihan. Nothing could be simpler than this arrangement-the owner handing over his land in return for a small rent, the farmer becoming possessor of outbuildings, if erected at his expense, stock and crops, both parties being at liberty to separate under certain conditions, one of which was the reimbursement of outlay. It will easily be seen that such a system would work well whilst the land possessed little value and capital was scarce. Nevertheless, the domaine congéable is still to be found in what we may well call a land of survivals. Two of these unfortunately form a serious stumbling-block to progress, and seem likely to outlast the picturesque costumes, the old-world traditions, even the ancient speech of the French Bretagne. Beggary and intemperance, from time immemorial, have degraded a population characterized by many sterling qualities. So far back as 1536 3 we find severe edicts against

1 Nevertheless, in the space of five or six years the Revolution had quadrupled the resources of civilization and enormously developed material progress throughout the country.—Mignet, vol. ii., p. 179.

2 "Congéable. Tenure à domaine congéable, tenure avec faculté pour le bailleur de congédier à volonté le preneur, en lui remboursant son amé. lioration."-Littré.

3 See H. Martin, vol. viii., p. 273.

drunkenness in Brittany, comprised in the celebrated judicial reforms of François I. and his legists. According to this Draconian code, for the first offence the punishment was a term of bread and water diet in prison; for the second, flogging; in case of incorrigibility, loss of ears and banishment.

Orphanages, industrial schools, benefit societies, and other philanthropic measures are combating the first evil. The second, it is to be hoped, will disappear with the gradual spread of education and material well-being.

Great is the change that awaits the traveller in sunny, lighthearted, dance-loving Anjou. The Breton peasant, taciturn, reserved, yet hospitable, will set before his guest the best his larder affords-cyder, rye-bread baked weeks before, hard cheese, curds and whey; in Anjou the housewife brings out a white loaf, fresh butter and jam, wine, even liqueur. A lady tourist unaccompanied may safely entrust herself to a Breton driver. Throughout the long day's journey across solitary regions he will never once open his lips unless interrogated. But the English visitor in an Angevin country-house is soon regarded as a friend by all the neighbours. Many and many a time, the labours in the field over, the merry supper taken out of doors ended, have I been invited to join the peasant folk in the joyous round. Accompanied only by the sound of their own voices, and needing no other stimulus, for ball-room a stretch of sward, for illumination the stars, young and old forget the long day's toil and the cares of life in these innocent Bacchanalia. Ofttimes the dance would be prolonged till near midnight, the presence of a stranger apparently adding zest to the festivity; but no matter how hilarious the mirth, how openhearted the sense of fellowship, no unseemly jest, no indecorous word, jars our ears.

“Maine and Anjou," writes our traveller, “have the appearance of deserts," and he goes on to note one feature of the country which even in our own time is apt to convey an idea of poverty. Throughout the department of the Maine and Loire, formed from the ancient Anjou, may still be seen those cavedwellings or Troglodyte villages which astonished Arthur Young a century ago, ready-made habitations hollowed out of the tufa or yellow calcareous rock abounding in the department. Sometimes in our walks and drives we have the backs of the