WEALTH OF THE NATION AND ITS DIVISION.

To the traveller in France, every thing seems to denote extreme poverty, and that extending its influence over all ranks of society; and certainly, compared with England, France is wretchedly poor. But many of its resources remain hidden, and it is certain, that on the demands of its despotic ruler, France produced unlooked-for supplies. His wars have now greatly exhausted this hidden treasure, and there is, fortunately for the peace of the world, very little money left in the country. The marks of the wealth of the country, both absolutely, and in relation to other countries, are to be found in the manner of living, and extent of fortunes of its inhabitants; in the size, comfort, and style of their houses; in their dress and amusements; in the price of labour; the salaries of office; the trade and commerce of the country; the number of country houses, of banks, &c. In examining each of these heads, we shall find that France is a very poor country.

The sum of two thousand pounds a-year is reckoned a noble fortune in France, and very, very few, there are that possess that sum.


One thousand pounds a-year constitutes a handsome fortune for a gentleman; and four hundred for a bourgeois, or for one employed in trade or commerce. Few of the nobility are now possessed of fortunes sufficient to maintain a carriage; and none under the rank of princes, in France, have now more than one carriage.

The style of living is wretched: only the first, and richest houses, can afford to entertain company, and those but seldom. It requires a large fortune to maintain a regular cook; in half the houses they have only a dirty scullion, who, among her other work, cooks the dinner. In the other half, a traiteur sends in the dinner; or if a bachelor, the master of the house dines at a table d'hôte, as a pensionaire.

The interior management of the French houses denotes extreme poverty. Some few articles of splendid furniture are displayed for shew in one or two rooms, while the rest of the house is shut up, and left dirty and ill furnished.

Of their dress and amusements I have already said enough, to shew that they denote poverty, and I shall say more when I come to the French character.

The price of labour is far lower than what we are used to, fluctuating from fifteen to twenty pence a-day. The salaries of office are, throughout France, not above one-third what they are in England. Of the want of trade and commerce I have already spoken. The public banks are very few in number, and only to be found in very large and commercial towns. Country houses and fine estates, there are none, or where they are found, it is in a state of dilapidation.

Where, then, is the wealth of France? I was at some pains to solve this question. The remaining wealth of France is divided among the generals of Napoleon; the army furnishers and contractors; the prefects, sub-prefects; the numerous receivers and collectors of taxes; and, lastly, but chiefly, the peasantry. It may appear strange to those who are not acquainted with the present state of France, that I have mentioned the peasants among the richest; but I am convinced of the fact. The peasants in France have divided among themselves the lands and property of the emigrants. Napoleon drew supplies from them; but very politically maintained them in their possessions. Their condition, and the condition of the lands, shew them to be in easy circumstances. They are well clothed, and abundantly, though poorly fed.

France is, in fine, a very poor country, compared with our own; but it is not without resources, and its wealth will remain concealed as long as it is under Napoleon; for whoever shewed wealth, was by him marked out as an object of plunder. By allowing unlimited power to his emissaries and spies, he was able to discover where the wealth lay, and by vesting the same power in his prefects, sub-prefects, receivers, and gend'armes, he seized on it when discovered. In the public prints, previous to his downfall, we may observe almost continually the thanks of Government to the farmers, proprietors, and others, for their patriotic exertions in supplying horses, grain, &c. In these cases, the patriotic farmers had bands of gend'armerie stationed over them, who drove away their horses, their cattle and grain, without the hope even of payment or redress of any kind. Nothing denotes more the poverty of the country, than the want of horses, of cows, and all kinds of live stock.

In no country in the world is there found so great a number of beggars as in France; and yet there are not wanting in every town establishments for the maintenance of the poor. These beggars are chiefly from among the manufacturing classes; the families of soldiers and labourers. The peasants are seldom reduced to this state, or when reduced, they are succoured by their fellow peasants, and do not beg publicly. The national poverty has had the worst effects on the French character; in almost every station in life they will be found capable of meanness. What can be more disgusting, than to see people of fashion and family reduced to the necessity of letting to strangers their own rooms, and retiring into garrets and other dirty holes—demanding exorbitant prices, and with perfect indifference taking half or a third—higgling for every article they purchase—standing in dirty wrappers at their doers, seeing the wood weighed in the street, on terms of familiarity with tradesmen and their own servants. All this you see in France daily; but on this subject I have elsewhere made observations.

As connected with this part of the subject, a few words must be said on the condition of the towns and villages; for although I had at first intended to treat this, and the situation of the different ranks, as separate subjects; yet they seem to come in more naturally at present, when speaking of the wealth of France and its division. The towns throughout France, as well as the villages, particularly in the south, have an appearance of decay and dilapidation. The proprietors have not the means of repair. It is customary (I suppose from the heat of the climate), to build the houses very large; to repair a French house, therefore, is very expensive: and it will generally be seen, that in most, houses only one or two rooms are kept in repair, and furnished, while the rest of the house is crumbling to pieces. This is the case with all the great houses; in those of the common people we should expect more comfort, as they are small, and do not need either expensive repair or gay furniture; but comfort is unknown in France. On entering a small house in one of the villages, we find the people huddled together as they are said to do in some parts of England and Scotland. Men, women, dogs, cats, pigs, goats, &c.—no glass in the windows—doors shattered—truckle-beds—a few earthen pots; and with all this filth, we find, perhaps, half a dozen velvet or brocade covered chairs; a broken mirror, or a marble slab-table; these are the articles plundered in former days of terror and revolution. All caffés and hotels in the villages are thus furnished.

The streets in almost every town in France are without pavement. Would any one believe, that in the great city, as the French call it, there is a total want of this convenience? On this subject, Mercier, in his Tableaux de Paris, has this remark: [42]"Dès qu'on est sur le pavè de Paris, ou voit que le peuple n'y fait pas les loix;—aucune commoditè pour les gens de pied—point de trottoirs—le peuple semble un corps separè des autres ordres de l'etat—les riches et les grands qui ont equipage ont le droit de l'ecraser ou de le mutiler dans les rues—cent victimes expirent par annee sous les rues des voiture."

Besides the want of pavement to protect us from the carriages, and to keep our feet dry, we have to encounter the mass of filth and dirt, which the nastiness of the inhabitants deposits, and which the police suffers to remain. The state of Edinburgh in its worst days, as described by our English neighbours, was never worse than what you meet with in France. The danger of walking the streets at night is very great, and the perfumes of Arabia do not prevail in the morning.

The churches in all the villages are falling to ruin, and in many instances are converted into granaries, barracks, and hospitals; manufacturing establishments are also in ruins, scarcely able to maintain their workmen; their owners have no money for the repair of their buildings. The following description of the changes that have taken place in the French villages, is better than any thing I can give; and from what I have seen, it is perfectly correct:

[43]"Avant la revolution, le village se composait de quatre mille habitans. Il fournissait pour sa part, au service general de l'Eglise et des hopitaux, ainsi qu'aux besoins de l'instruction cinq eclesiastiques, deux sœurs de la charité, et trois maitres d'ecol. Ces derniers sont remplacé par un maitre d'equitation, un maitre de dessin et deux maitres de musique. Sur huit fabriques d'etoffes de laisne et de coton, il ne reste plus qu'une seule. En revanche il s'est etabli deux caffés, un tabaque, un restaurat, et un billiard qui prosperent d'une maniere surprenante. On comptait autrefois quarante charretiers de labour; vingt-cinq d'entre eux sont devenus couriers, piqueurs, et cochès. Ce vuide est remplie par autant de femmes, qui dirigent la charette et qui pour se delasser de tems en tems menent au marché des voitures de paille ou de charbon. Le nombre de charpentiers, de maçons, et d'autres artisans est diminué à peu pres de moitie. Mais le prix de tout les genres de main d'œuvre ayant aussi augmenté de moitie—cela revient au meme—et la compensation se retablit. Une espece d'individus que le village fournit en grande abondance, et dans des proportions trop fortes ce sont les domestiques de luxe et de livrée. Pour peu que cela dure on achevera de depeupler le campagne de gens utiles qui le cultivent pour peupler les villes d'individus oisifs et corrompus. Beaucoup de femmes et de jeunes filles, qui n'etaient que des couturiers, et des servantes de femmes, ont aussi trouvè de l'avancement dans la capitale, et dans les grandes villes. Elles sont devenues femmes de chambre—brodeuses—et marchandes des modes. On dirait que le luxe a entreprit de pomper la jeunesse; toutes les idèes et tous les regards sont tournès vers lui à aucun epoque anterieure le contingent du village en hommes de loi—huissiers—etudiants en droits, mediçins, poetes et artistes, ne s'etait eleve au dela de trois ou quatre; il s'eleve maintenant à soixante deux, et une chose qu'on n'aurait jamais su imaginer autrefois c'est qu'il y a dans le nombre autant de peintres, de poetes, de comediens, de danseuses de theatre et de musiciens ambulans, qu'une ville de quatre vingt mille hommes aurait pu en fournir il y a trente ou quarante ans."

Another mark of the poverty of France at present occurs to me: In every town, but particularly in the large cities, we are struck with numbers of idle young men and women who are seen in the streets. Now that the army no longer carries away the "surplus population of France," (to use the language of Bonaparte), the number of these idlers is greatly increased. The great manufacturing concerns have long ceased to employ them. France is too poor to continue the public works which Napoleon had every where begun. The French have no money for the improvement of their estates, the repair of their houses, or the encouragement of the numerous trades and professions which thrive by the costly taste and ever-varying fashion of a luxurious and rich community. Being on the subject of taste and fashion, I must not forget that I noticed the dress and amusements of the French as offering a mark of their poverty. The great meanness of their dress must particularly strike every English traveller; for I believe there is no country in the world where all ranks of people are so well dressed as in England. It is not indeed astonishing to see the nobility, the gentry, and those of the liberal professions well clothed, but to see every tradesman, and every tradesman's apprentice, wearing the same clothes as the higher orders; to see every servant as well, if not better clothed than his master, affords a clear proof of the riches of a country. In the higher ranks among the French, a gentleman has indeed a good suit of clothes, but these are kept for wearing in the evening on the promenade, or at a party. In the morning, clothes of the coarsest texture, and often much worn, or even ragged, are put on. If you pay a lady or gentleman a morning visit, you find them so metamorphosed as scarcely to be known; the men in dirty coarse cloth great coats, wide sackcloth trowsers and slippers; the women in coarse calico wrappers, with a coloured handkerchief tied round their hair. All the little gaudy finery they possess is kept for the evening, but even then there is nothing either costly or elegant, or neat, as with us. In their amusements also is the poverty of the people manifested. A person residing in Paris, and who had travelled no further, would think that this observation was unjust, for in Paris there is no want of amusements; the theatres are numerous, and all other species of entertainment are to be found. But in the smaller towns, one little dirty theatre, ill lighted, with ragged scenery, dresses, and a beggarly company of players, is all that is to be found. The price of admittance is also very low. The poverty of the people will not admit of the innumerable descriptions of amusements which we find in every little town in England: amateur concerts are sometimes got up, but for want of funds they seldom last long. My subscription to one of these at the town where we resided, was five francs per month, or about a shilling each concert. This may be taken as a specimen of the price of French amusements.

Dieses Kapitel ist Teil des Buches TRAVELS IN FRANCE, DURING THE YEARS 1814-15.