BOOK sand inhabitants. The fir trees cut in the neighbouring heights, are divided into planks in the burgh of Puy-Guil- CXLIV. laume on the banks of the Dore, by means of hydraulic saws. Maringues rises on the Morge, not far from the Allier; many of the inhabitants are employed in dressing chamois and kid skins. Courpierre, the chief town in an agricultural district, contains about three thousand individuals; one or two mills have been built in it for the purpose of grinding bones, which are used as a manure. The district of Ambert, although not so favourably situ- Ambert. ated as the last, is perhaps more important on account of its industry. The best cheeses in Auvergne are exported from the town; the stream which crosses it, and which throws itself into the Dore, puts in motion more than sixty paper mills and different works. Arlant is situated above Ambert in a pleasant valley on the banks of the Dolore; the principal manufactures are lace and ribbons; Marsac and Viverols carry on a trade in articles of the same sort. Mines of argentiferous lead are worked with profit in the neighbourhood of Saint-Amans-Roche-Savine: lastly, the burghs of Oliergues and Cunlhat export the same products as Ambert. All those who have visited the department, agree that its Wealth of the departcommerce and resources might be greatly increased; to judge ment. from the antimony, lead and coal mines, considerable wealth might be extracted from the depths of the earth. The fruitful soil of Limagne might be covered with the richest harvests, if the prejudices of the peasantry were not opposed to every improvement. The rich meadows on Mont-Dor, the fine swards that cover all the sides of the volcanic Puys, are admirably adapted for rearing cattle; but it is difficult to find any of a good kind, it might be necessary to import oxen from Switzerland, and sheep from Spain. The wretched Poverty of condition of the people in the rural districts may be readily inferred from the preceding remarks. A peasant, encumbered with unwieldy wooden shoes, may be seen holding a long rod in his right hand, and guiding oxen attached to a wooden cart, of which the wheels without iron make the air resound with the shrill and disagreeable noise produced by the friction on the axle-tree. The ancient araire, a very clumsy plough, is still used in the fields; the ploughman the inhabit ants. BOOK CXLIV. stops his oxen by repeating the Latin words, sta bos, words introduced by Roman masters, from whom they have been handed down to men ignorant of their meaning. The cottages of the peasantry proclaim their poverty; the windows do not admit sufficient light, the doors, even the walls, hardly afford shelter against the blast. The labourer is seen in his wretched dwelling, borne down by want and toil; his principal food is cheese or milk, which cannot be of a very good quality, for the cows are ill-fed, and they are used in common with oxen in the plough. But the people are laborious and worthy of a better fate; the country-women, who carry on their heads the provisions which they sell in the towns, are generally employed in knitting stockings, or in turning the spindle as they go to market. It is not uncommon for the peasants in their leisure hours to carry sackfuls of earth to places difficult of access, and which the kindness of the proprietor allows them to cultivate. They are degraded by the prejudices which prevailed throughout France about three centuries ago, and by ignorance, not of their duties, for they are honest and upright, but of whatever regards their comfort and welfare; it may be truly said that more knowledge and less superstition might enable them to enjoy the blessings, of which their laborious perseverance renders them not unworthy. BOOK CXLV. EUROPE. Europe continued.-France. Fourth Section. Eastern Region. LYONNAIS, Burgundy, Franche-Comté, and Alsace make up the eastern region. The inhabitants are more enlightened and more wealthy than those in the central departments; the relative population is also greater; the superficial extent is equal to 2960 square leagues, the number of individuals to 4,160,000, or the mean number in every square league to 1416. The Forez heights separate the two regions; in the one the people are ignorant, poor and wretched; in the other they are well informed, industrious and happy how happens it that such differences exist in a country, of which all the inhabitants enjoy the same privileges, and are governed by the same laws? They may be accounted for by many concurring causes, but the facility of communications is perhaps the most effectual of any. The region we are about to enter is better provided with roads, navigable rivers and canals than any other that has been yet described, and it possesses no other advantage which exerts a greater influence on the industry of the inhabitants, or contributes more to improvements of every sort. BOOK CXLV. ment of The department of Loire is watered from the southern to Departthe northern extremity by the river of the same name, Loire. which flows between granite chains, sandstone and ancient calcareous rocks, traversing lands ill adapted for fruitful BOOK CXLV. Rive de Gier Rail road. harvests, as their insufficiency attests, but valuable on account of their coal, iron and lead. Metals rendered subservient to many domestic purposes, lint and flax woven to satisfy the luxury of the rich, or the wants of the poor, silk made to assume a thousand different tints, or changed into articles which the caprice of fashion multiplies almost to infinity, yield greater profits to the inhabitants than any that could be derived from the culture of the richest soil. Of the three districts into which the department of Loire is divided, Saint-Etienne is the most industrious and the most populous. The people in the small town of BourgArgental rear many silk-worms; they are also employed in manufacturing crapes and different stuffs. The inhabitants of Chambon work their coal mines, manufacture ribbons, export a great many nails, knives, and files; Firmini carries on a trade in the same articles. A fine walk leads to Saint Chamond, a town of six thousand inhabitants, where public baths have been lately erected. The waters of the Ban and the Gier serve to move different works and not fewer than thirty ribbon manufactories. Rive de Gier contains more than eight thousand inhabitants; the wealth of the town may be attributed to glass and iron works, and to mines of excellent coal, worked by means of forty steam engines; it is situated near the junction of three valleys on the Givor canal and the smail river of Giers. The village of Berardiere in the neighbourhood of the chief town, may be mentioned on account of its steel foundries. The immense progress that industry has already made in France, renders it difficult to assign any limits to future improvements, but from what has been already done, it is reasonable to suppose that much more may be accomplished. A rail-way, now almost finished, extends from SaintEtienne to Lyons, so that goods may soon be conveyed from the one place to the other in half the time that is at present necessary. The distance may be equal to twentyfive or twenty-six miles; the difficulties that have been overcome since 1827, have wholly changed the appearance of the country. Hills and valleys are levelled, 620,000 cubic yards of hard rock have been torn from the soil, 120,000 cubic yards of earth have been taken away, and in order to fill up the inequalities in the ground, 110,000 have been removed from one place to another; on the whole line, not fewer than a hundred and twelve arches, each of them forming a bridge, have been raised, and it has been necessary to cut through a high hill in the neighbourhood of SaintEtienne. It is calculated that at no distant period steamengines travelling at the rate of five miles an hour, and dragging each fifteen loaded wagons, may be substituted for the eighteen hundred carts and carriages that pass daily between the two towns. BOOK CXLV. Etienne. Saint-Etienne, says a good judge of such places, is built Saintwithout regularity; there as well as in many commercial towns, order and beauty are of secondary importance.* Workshops covered with tiles, darkened with smoke and without windows, resembling the abodes of the Cyclops, surround the elegant and modern town-house, which the inhabitants erected on the Place-Neuve. The streets are obscured by a dark and light dust, which covers clothes, houses and even furniture. It is, however, in these very streets that the people manufacture the light gauze, the blond and dazzling ribbons, for which the whole of Europe is tributary to France. Contiguous houses are inhabited by armourers and embroiderers; the movement of the loom is heard in the streets, and the noise of the anvil resounds in the fields. "I have seen," continues M. Blanqui, “men on horseback, who to judge from their squalid dress, might be thought unable to afford linen, I afterwards discovered that they were the proprietors of productive iron works. Miners without shirts refuse to take charity; beggars with shirt-ruffles walk the streets of Paris. The houses, which formed formerly part of the suburbs, are now in the heart of the town, and the number of inhabitants has increased within a period of less than ten years from twenty to forty thousand. What a contrast to Montbrison, the capital of the department, which is inhabited principally by the Relation d'un voyage au midi de la Frauce, pendant les mois d'Aout et de September, 1828, by M. Adrien Blanqui. |