BOOK CXLII. Subprefec tures. Department of Dordogne. latter was fixed at L.130. Cahors was the birthplace of pope John XXII, who in the year 1321, founded an university in his native town, of the poet-Clement Marot, La Calprenede the financier, Joachim Murat, king of Naples, and general Ramel, who was assassinated at Toulouse in 1815. The manufactures of the town are paper, cloth, and leather. Gourdon, the capital of a subprefecture, rises on the Bloue, a small river; it carries on some trade in sail cloth and woollen stuffs. Souillac may be about seven leagues from Gourdon; it contains a royal manufactory of fire arms, it is watered by the Dordogne, on which a fine bridge consisting of seven arches has been erected. Two intermitting fountains, the Gourg and the Bouley are situated in the neighbourhood; the first rises in the valley of Blagour, and the other issues from the heights of Puy Martin. They never flow at the same time, as soon as the one ceases the other begins, and changes in a few minutes the valley which serves as its channel into a sheet of water. The eruption of the Bouley is almost always accompanied with a slight shock and a tremendous noise. We may pass from the department of Lot into that of Dordogne by descending the last river, which traverses it on the south from east to west. It is also watered by the Ille, the Dronne, the Vezere, and by more than fourteen hundred small rivers and streams. Hills extend along the country in every direction, but with the exception of two valleys, those watered by the Ille and the Dordogne, they bound only narrow passes, almost all of which are desolated by torrents. The soil is by no means productive; the calcareous rocks are in many places bare, or vast districts are covered with heath, broom and chestnut trees; the uniformity thus occasioned is in a few places broken by sterile marshes. Some parts are rich and fruitful, but they are so insignificant in point of extent, that they may be said to form an exception to the general character of the department. The grain harvests are not sufficient for the maintenance of the inhabitants, but the deficiency is supplied by using chestnuts as a substitute. As to the vintage, more than half the wines are either consumed in different parts of France, or they are converted into brandy for exportation. Mineral CXLII. substances abound in the country, the most valuable are BOOK coal, manganese and iron. The working of the last metal, and the art of converting it into steel, furnish employment to many of the inhabitants. The same country supplies the gourmands in Paris with different delicacies, among which the white wine of Bergerac is not the least important; pork, red partridges, truffles, liqueurs and sweetmeats are also sent to the capital. Sarlat exports a great quantity of paper, it is the chief Sarlat. town in a district that abounds in iron and copper ore, millstones and coal. The people in Belves and Bugne find employment in making walnut oil. The Doux takes its source in the same district; it rises in a narrow valley, and fills a circular basin, of which the depth has not been ascertained, but the circumference exceeds 176 yards. The labyrinths in a cave about three leagues distant from Sarlat, are more than 4,200 yards in length; they extend between the burgh of Miremont and the village of Privaset. The small and neat town of Bergerac rises on the right bank of the Dordogne ; its position enables the inhabitants to carry on an advantageous trade with Libourne and Bordeaux. Many persons are employed in the foundries, iron-works and paper-mills in the vicinity. Michel de Montaigne, a village about eight leagues from Bergerac, is situated near the castle that belonged to the celebrated philosopher, the chamber wherein the most of his essays were composed, may still be seen in one of the turrets. A steep road on an arid ridge leads to the fruitful valley Perigueux. watered by the Ille, and to Perigueux, the capital of the department, and the chief town in a diocess. It stands on the site of the ancient Vesunna. The streets are dark, narrow and crooked, the old quarter or the city is almost deserted. Were it necessary to indicate its importance in the time of the Romans, it might be sufficient to mention the public baths and aqueducts now in ruins, the remains of the amphitheatre, and the tower of Vesunne, as the inhabitants call it, a circular edifice without doors or windows, but communicating with the town by a subterranean passage. Several monuments of the middle ages, the cathedral, different inscriptions, and the church of Saint Front, in which the Gothic BOOK CXLII. Brantome. architecture recalls the period of the low empire, prove how much it has fallen since the time that Pepin defeated the duke of Aquitaine under its walls. The inhabitants of the present day carry on a trade with the capital in turkeys, truffles, pastry, liqueurs and other articles. Brantome, a small town on the left bank of the Dronne, peopled by 2700 inhabitants, was formerly the seat of a benedictine convent, which might have been long since forgotten, had it not been for Peter de Bourdeilles, better known by the name of Brantome, a writer of some celebrity, and although a layman, abbot of the convent. Nontron on the right bank of the Bandiat carries on a trade in leather, hardware goods and iron obtained from the mines in the neighbourhood. Riberac, the chief town of a contiguous district, rises in a fruitful plain at no great distance from the Dronne, but still nearer an old castle that belonged to the viscounts of Turenne, BOOK CXLIII. EUROPE. Europe continued.-France. Second Section. Western Region. WE have had occasion to observe the mild climate, the romantic sites and the remains of Roman power in the twenty-eight departments that form the Southern region of France. The inhabitants, it has been seen, are favoured by nature, different productions are admirably adapted for their country, with the exception of the mountains, the soil is everywhere fruitful. But if the population be compared with the surface, it will be found that the result accords ill with the natural advantages of the same vast region, which makes up more than a third part of the kingdom. The extent is equal to 9,000 square leagues, the population to 8,404,000 individuals, thus the number of inhabitants to every square league does not amount to nine hundred and thirty-four, a result below the mean number in the other divisions of the same country. Such facts are not without their value; if the best and most fruitful part of France is comparatively poor and ill-peopled, it proves how much the munificence of nature may be surpassed by the industry and resources of man. Government too may derive an important lesson from the same fact, it may thus be taught to appreciate the elements of its wealth and power. Thirteen departments make up the western region; the population relatively to the surface is greater than in the last, for 5,438,000 inhabitants are scattered over a surface of 4200 square leagues, consequently the average number to BOOK CXLIII. BOOK CXLIII. Department of Charente. every square league exceeds 1290; still the advantages of education are little known in the western region; in that point of view it is almost on a level with the preceding. How much then might the population and wealth be increased, if ignorance no longer formed a barrier to the expansion of industry? Continuing in the direction from south to north, the department of Charente may be first described. Contiguous, but much inferior in size to the department of Dordogne, it is intersected on the north by high hills, and on the south by low ridges and heights. Nine rivers, exclusively of the one from which the department takes its name, water it in different directions. So many pools are contained in the bed of the Tardouere, that most of the water remains in them, indeed it never joins the Bandiat until it has been swollen by rains. The last river exhibits the same phenomena; the hills which bound it are undermined by immense cavities, adorned with the finest stalactites. The Taponnat after a course of some leagues fills different pools, and never afterwards appears. The Touvre, almost as large as the Sorgues at Vaucluse, issues from the cavities of a steep rock; although it encloses several islands, it might be rendered navigable without much difficulty. These rivers, as well as the Perouse, the Né, the Tude, the Nizonne and the Vienne water valleys abounding in rich pastures. The calcareous ridges and sandy plains that cover several districts, account for the aridity of the soil in the greater portion of the department. The arable land may be equal to a third part of the whole, the grain harvests are sufficient for the maintenance of the inhabitants; another third is laid out in vineyards, yielding wines of an ordinary quality, but it is for the most part converted into brandy, of which the quantity exported into the interior and into different countries amounts to more than thirty-five thousand barrels. The rest of the department is covered with chestnut trees, uncultivated plains, natural and artificial meadows, affording pasture to thirty thousand oxen, which the inhabitants import every year; they are fattened and again exported. Mines are worked |