The Eve of the French Revolution 377 can be seen ; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so broken as to impede all passengers, but ease none. Yet here is a chateau, and inhabited. Who is this Monsieur de Cha- teaubriant, the owner, that has nerves strung for a residence amidst such filth and poverty ? . . . To Montauban. The poor people seem poor indeed ; the children terribly ragged, — if possible, worse clad than if with no clothes at all ; as to shoes and stockings, they are luxuries. A beautiful girl of six or seven years playing with a stick, and smiling under such a bundle of rags as made my heart ache to see her. They did not beg, and when I gave them anything seemed more surprised than obliged. One third of what I have seen of this province seems uncul- tivated, and nearly all of it in misery. What have kings, and ministers, and parliaments, and states to answer for their prejudices, seeing millions of hands that would be industrious idle and starving through the execrable maxims of despotism, or the equally detestable prejudices of a feudal nobility. Sleep at the Lion d'Or, at Montauban, an abom- inable hole. Young was in Paris during the early sessions of the Estates General in 1789. 1 On June 28 he left the capi- tal to visit the eastern and southeastern provinces. July 4-2 To Chateau Thiery, following the course of the Lack of Marne. The country is pleasantly varied, and hilly enough to render it a constant picture, were it inclosed. Thiery is beautifully situated on the same river. I arrived there by five o'clock, and wished, in a period so interesting to France and indeed to all Europe, to see a newspaper. I asked for a coffee-house, — not one in the town. Here are two parishes and some thousands of inhabitants, and not a newspaper to be seen by a traveler, even in a moment when all ought to be in anxiety. What stupidity, poverty, and want of circula- tion! This people hardly deserve to be free; and should there be the least attempt with vigor to keep them otherwise, 1 See below, pp. 402 sqq. provinces.
