a workhouse for their old age, but removes so many competitors from the labour market, and really raises wages instead of depressing them. But for small properties, all the present proprietors would be added to the number of men in want of employment; all, instead of half, of the men of La Creuse would be driven to emigrate. So far as landed property is concerned, it is its non-division-not its subdivision-which impoverishes La Creuse; and the non-division is owing to the neglect of a government otherwise occupied than in promoting improvements in remote parts of the country, which add no immediate éclat or visible strength to an empire. Reference has been made to the quantity of land in La Creuse belonging in common to the villages. 'I do not hesitate to say,' M. About pronounces, that almost all the valueless land in France belongs to impersonal beings-the State, the communes, or the charitable institutions. If a number of villagers own twenty acres in common, you may predict that the ground will be neither drained, manured, nor cultivated. Every one will take all he can out of it; no one will spend a sou of capital, or a quarter of an hour's labour on it. Sell the village common to yonder poor shepherd with a dozen sheep, and those twenty acres will soon produce 500 hectolitres of

corn.'

The common lands of La Creuse are, in fact, never

jouissent d'une aisance véritable. Leurs biens se divisent par des héritages, mais beaucoup d'entre eux ne cessent d'acheter, et en fin de compte, ils tendent plus à s'élever qu'à descendre dans l'échelle de la richesse.'

* •

Le Progrès,' pp. 188-9.

cultivated, unless in seasons of unusual scarcity; and the ground is manured neither before nor after the crops which are then snatched for the common use of the village. It was explained to the present writer that the chief cause of the sensation produced by his own appearance in the villages of La Creuse, was the village common. Not conceiving the idea of a traveller for pleasure or information, the only reason that could be conjectured for his visit was a desire to buy land. But the buyer of a villager's separate estate would take along with it a share in the common land; and for one cow or one sheep that his predecessor fed on the common, might feed four, becoming thereby the common enemy of the village. Hence the acquisition of additional stock, and the entrance of new capital, are alike viewed with disfavour.

It is not too much to say that every neglect, as well as every act, of the Imperial Government which diminishes the peasantry of La Creuse, and the capacity of its soil to support an increase of numbers, is a public calamity to France, and even to Europe. From time immemorial it has been a region in which crime has been almost unknown,* and the gentle yet manly virtues of the race are visible in their features and form-peacefulness, affection, courtesy, sobriety, honesty, with manly independence and physical vigour. It is this race which Imperial policy is fast eradicating from its native soil, and transforming into a crowd of restless roving town.

In his crime charts (1833), M. Guerry says of La Creuse-'On a compté chaque année d'après la moyenne un accusé pour attentats contre

operatives and dissolute garrison soldiers. The depopulation of La Creuse is but a striking example of the gradual extinction throughout France of Jacques Bonhomme, who was all that the name imported. The rural population of France is now scarcely greater than it was at the beginning of the century, while the urban population has increased from six millions to sixteen, and of the numbers enumerated as belonging to the country, no small part now consists of an element infected with the vices of the camp and the city. Not only all France, but all Europe has reason to join in the eloquent invocation in which M. de Lavergne implores those who direct the destinies of France to leave to it Jacques Bonhomme.

'Dans toutes nos grandes crises historiques, le paysan français, si bien personnifié par Jacques Bonhomme, a toujours fini par nous tirer de l'affaire. Remontez aux croisades, aux guerres féodales, aux guerres contre les Anglais, aux guerres de religion, aux guerres d'Italie, aux guerres de Louis XIV, aux guerres de la Révolution et de l'Empire: c'est Jacques Bonhomme qui répare sans cesse le mal fait par d'autres. C'est encore Jacques Bonhomme qui a supporté tout le poids de la dernière révolution et de la dernière guerre, c'est lui qui a héroïquement subi sans se plaindre l'épreuve douloureuse de la disette; c'est lui qui ne se lasse pas de fouiller le sol natal" avec une opiniâtreté invincible," comme dit La Bruyère, et qui en tirera certainement de nouveaux fruits. Il ignore les jouissances du luxe, les personnes sur 37,000 habitants. C'est environ quinze fois moins que dans la Corse!'-Mahon's History of England, chap. xlvi.

les gains du jeu, les ambitions fiévreuses, et possède encore les mâles vertus et les instincts productifs de ses pères. Laissez-le faire; il vous rendra bien vite, sans faste et sans bruit, sinon ce que vous avez perdu, du moins ce que peuvent créer des richesses nouvelles, le travail et l'économie. Si les autres classes de la société française, riches, bourgeois, artisans de villes, valaient pour leurs rôles ce que Jacques Bonhomme vaut pour le sien, ce n'est pas l'Angleterre, c'est la France qui serait depuis longtemps le premier peuple de l'univers.'*

* 'L'Agriculture et la Population.' Par M. L. de Lavergne. Second Edition, 1865, pp. 343-4.

283

A SECOND VISIT TO LA CREUSE.

THE author has elsewhere remarked that the land system of France cannot be estimated fairly without reference to the political conditions under which it has been tried. And of all the departments of France, La Creuse presents the most striking example of their influence. An extreme instance, it is true, it is nevertheless a typical one of the obstacles which the policy of the last eighteen years has opposed to the tendencies of the age to carry rapid improvement into the most backward rural localities; while it illustrates also the effects of earlier misgovernment. The cardinal doctrine of the first authority on French rural economy in the lectures, of which the suppression of his Chair in 1852 prevented the oral delivery, is that the town is the most powerful agent in improving the country. He has lived to see the influence of the town pass like a pestilence over his own department, depopulating its villages, and leaving its fields to relapse into waste. The number of men and boys migrating annually

* Rural Economy of England, Ireland, and Scotland.' Translated by a Scotch Farmer, pp. 167-8. The gentle allusion in the Preface to this work to the suppression of his chair is as characteristic of an author remarkable for amiability as for extraordinary capacity and knowledge, as the act itself was characteristic of the principles and tendencies of despotic government.