We passed through the Porte St. Martin, one of the finest entrances to Paris, built by Louis XIV. in 1674. It is composed of three arches, ornamented with four bas reliefs, representing the taking of Besançon, the rupture of the Triple Alliance, the surrender of Limburg, and the defeat of the Austrian army by Louis XIV, under the figure of Hercules, with his club, repulsing an eagle.

Immediately outside of the gate we came to the fine canal of l’Ourcq; the country was enchanting, and the weather superb. After refreshing the horses at the village of Claye, we arrived in the evening at the handsome town of Meaux on the Marne, the capital of the ci-devant Brie, celebrated for the elegant spire of its principal church, for being the first town that opened its gates to Henry IV., and for its excellent cheeses. The road from Paris hither was lined with seemingly deserted châteaux.

April 9. After some hours ride through a country, finely diversified with hills and levels, and with abundance of wood and water, we reached La Ferté sous Jouarre, a small town, in the vicinity of which are immense quarries, on the side of a hill, which supply a great part of France with millstones, and are of so superior a quality, that they formerly found their way to Germany, Holland, and even England. We slept this night at the village of Vieux Maisons, where I began to reconcile myself to the company of my gend’arme at supper, and to his sleeping in a bed in the same room, as all remonstrance I knew would be useless. Indeed he was superior to the generality of his brethren, and by no means deficient in education or intelligence; so that his company, which was intended as a punishment, became rather a pleasure.

April 10. We pursued our journey this day through a dreary country, and by a very bad bye road, having quitted the highway for some reason which I could not learn, and arrived at the miserable village of Etage, close to which we visited a very fine château, lately the property of Marshal Lasnes, but now of a Monsieur Genova. It formerly belonged to Monsieur Charmilly, first valet de chambre to Louis XVI., and who fell a victim to his attachment for his master. It has handsome gardens, beautifully situated woods, and some waterfalls. In one of the apartments are the pictures of its successive possessors; amongst whom was the Comte Langlum, who sold the demesne, with ninety-nine villages attached to it, to raise a sum for his ransom, when made prisoner by the Turks.

April 11. Our journey this day lay through Champagne, part of which province is called Pouilleuse, on account of the quantity of barren land it contains. In the evening we arrived at Chalons, and found comfortable accommodation at the little inn called the Ville de Metz. Chalons is an ancient and considerable town on the banks of the Marne, which bathes a part of its walls. It is mostly ill built, many of its houses being of wood, and the streets in general narrow. It has, nevertheless, some buildings worthy of notice; amongst which are the cathedral, constructed in the thirteenth century, in the Arab-gothic stile of architecture. The hotel of the prefecture is a handsome modern stone edifice. The Hôtel de Ville is also modern, and its grand facade and hall of audience are of the Corinthian order. The promenade, called the Jard, is considered one of the finest in France. The population of the town is about twelve thousand. It is celebrated for two great battles fought near it; the first in which Aurelian defeated Tacitus, his competitor for the empire, and the second in which Attila and his allies were defeated and dispersed by the Romans, the French, and Goths, in 451. Chalons has a public library of thirty thousand volumes, and an imperial school of arts and trades, in which are four hundred and fifty scholars, nominated by the Emperor, educated at the expense of the state, and chosen chiefly from the sons of the military.

It must be acknowledged, that France excels every country in the world in the institutions for public and gratuitous education. Primary and secondary schools are established in every commune, under the inspection of the civil magistrates, and partly supported by government. In the first, children learn reading, writing, and arithmetic; and in the second, they are taught the learned languages, and the elements of the sciences. To these first seminaries succeed the lyceums (also partly endowed by government, and which supply the place of the ancient colleges), one of which is established in every two or three departments; and to each is attached a library, a botanic garden, and a cabinet of natural history. The two latter cannot fail of being of infinite utility to the students, who have thus before their eyes all the productions of nature, the reading of which subjects, even when assisted by plates, can give but an imperfect idea.

From the lyceums those who are destined for the public service, or the learned professions, enter into the special schools, of which there are several in different parts of the empire, and in which the range of instruction is much more extensive than in our universities, embracing every branch both of the useful and elegant arts and sciences, natural history, painting, sculpture, architecture in all its branches, music, medicine, law, the veterinary science, &c. all have their respective places. Besides these are numerous military and marine establishments, for the education of young men destined for those professions. Even the art of swimming has become a branch of public education. Corporal chastisement is strictly prohibited in the schools; and all the scholars are obliged to wear an uniform, accompanied with a cocked hat, and to learn the manual exercise; by which means it is doubtless intended to familiarize them to the idea of becoming soldiers, and to blunt their feelings when they fall into the conscription.

But though public instruction seems to be so well organized in France, yet by no means must it be inferred that the diffusion of general knowledge is prevalent even amongst the upper class; in fact, though many Frenchmen have reached the highest point of science and literature, the number of those who may with propriety be called well informed is extremely small, while the truly ignorant are very numerous. The cause seems to be in the multifarious sciences which form the routine of the schools, and of which it is impossible to acquire more than a very superficial knowledge during the period of education; and after leaving school, not one Frenchman in a thousand ever thinks of reading for any other instruction than that necessary to his profession or business. In geography and general history in particular, the ignorance of Frenchmen in the respectable class of society often forces a smile. I was once in company with several, from whose rank in life might have been expected, at least, that general knowledge which is attendant on a liberal education; an English officer, who had sailed round the world, was also of the party. After a thousand questions respecting the countries he had seen, one gentleman asked him, if New Holland was not a port of North America? while another desired to know what he thought of the naval arsenal at Toulon? On his replying that he had never been in the Mediterranean, the Frenchman, with a look of sagacity, exclaimed, “Mais, Monsieur, vous n’avez pas donc fait le tour du monde!” Something similar was the idea of a midshipman, who insisted that the Bible was all a romance, for that had there been a Red Sea, so often spoken of in it, he must have seen it in his voyage round the world with Lord Anson.

Besides the seminaries of education I have mentioned, there is in every bishopric a school for the education of youth for the church; but as theology has since the revolution been a study that promises neither much reputation nor profit, these seminaries were almost entirely abandoned; and if government had not lately taken measures to provide a succession of priests, the next generation would have presented the appearance of the patriarchal ages, when every father acted as priest in his own family. The paltry salaries of the clergy prevent the middling or higher classes from destining their children for the profession. The government has lately formed establishments for the education of the sons of inferior citizens and others for the church. At the expiration of the term of their studies, if they find they have not employment, they have no alternative but to become soldiers; government determining not to be at the expense of their education, without being remunerated one way or other.

The annual salary of the archbishops is but fifteen thousand francs; of bishops ten thousand; of cures, or beneficed clergymen, from fifteen hundred to a thousand, and of the other priests but five hundred. The heads of the church have, however, in general, sinecure places in the court of Napoleon, and the inferior clergy augment their revenue by the fees on burials, marriages, and baptisms. Three great sources of the former revenues of the clergy are, however, nearly annihilated: confession has almost entirely fallen into disuse, or at the utmost, a general annual confession is deemed sufficient. Purgatory, that bugbear of the Catholic world for so many ages, has almost totally lost its influence on the minds of the people of France; and thus a second fertile source of riches to the clergy, in the celebration of masses for the dead, is almost entirely dried up. Lastly, the great majority of the enlightened French pay very little attention to the rules of their religion respecting fast days, and hence the sale of indulgences is much reduced.

With respect to the seminaries of female education in the provinces, they have been in general extremely bad since the revolution, the suppression of the convents having created a long void in this object. At present, boarding schools are becoming more numerous, and there are likewise many establishments for the education of girls, formed under the direction of several orders of religieuses, authorized by the government: particularly the “Dames de la Congrégation de Notre Dame,” and the “Dames de la Congrégation des Nouvelles Catholiques.”

April 12. Pursuing our journey from Chalons, we were obliged to stop at a miserable village, the gend’arme declaring his horse unable to proceed; but, in fact, his object was to get another day’s pay, by retarding our arrival at Verdun.

The following day (April 13) I halted awhile at St. Menehould, a small town of three thousand inhabitants, situated in a marsh, between two rocks. Here the Prussians were defeated by the Carmagnoles in 1792, which may be said to have sealed the destinies of France and of Europe, at least for a time; for the defeat of a regular army, which, according to the Duke of Brunswick’s manifesto, was to march to Paris, inspired such confidence into the armed mob of France, that nothing could afterwards resist them.

St. Menehould is also famous for the sieges it stood in 1048, 1089, 1436, 1560, and 1614. Hither retreated the Prince de Conde, the Duke de Bouillon, and Prince de Nevers. In 1616, it was taken by the Marquis de Praslin; in 1652, by the Spaniards, and the next year retaken by Louis XIV. in person. The walls which surrounded it have been levelled, and it is now entirely open.

The country from St. Menehould to Clermont is diversified by romantic hills and vallies, well wooded, watered and cultivated, and with extensive cherry and plum orchards. Near Clermont, my gend’arme pointed out the position, on a commanding eminence, occupied by Arthur Dillon’s army. Clermont is most romantically situated at the foot of a rocky eminence, rising from an extensive plain. The remains of fortifications are seen on the summit, and as three sides present a perpendicular face of 60 to 80 feet high, it must have been an extremely strong post. At one of the extremities of this hill is an artificial mound, where the republicans used to repair, to celebrate their civic marriages and take the civic oath.

April 14. I quitted Clermont for Verdun, with something like the apprehensions of a boy, on his first going to school, being unacquainted with the nature of a dépôt, and having heard no favourable account of the treatment of the prisoners. On entering the town I was conducted to the citadel, and before the commandant, a Colonel Courcelle, whose appearance was not calculated to do away the unfavourable account I had heard of him. A red woollen cap, and a grey frieze jacket and pantaloons, constituted his dress, and he filled the room with a cloud of smoke from a great pipe. He was however civil, and when the clerks had, according to the Verdun expression, “drawn my picture,” that is, taken down my description, size, the place of my birth, and my father and mother’s names, and having signed a parole not to quit the town without permission, I was allowed to retire at perfect liberty.