The Peasants Too Are Often Rendered
Desperate And Savage, By The Misery They Suffer From The
Oppression And Tyranny Of Their Landlords.
In this neighbourhood
the labouring people are ill lodged and wretchedly fed; and they
have no idea of cleanliness.
There is a substantial burgher in
the High Town, who was some years ago convicted of a most
barbarous murder. He received sentence to be broke alive upon the
wheel; but was pardoned by the interposition of the governor of
the county, and carries on his business as usual in the face of
the whole community. A furious abbe, being refused orders by the
bishop, on account of his irregular life, took an opportunity to
stab the prelate with a knife, one Sunday, as he walked out of
the cathedral. The good bishop desired he might be permitted to
escape; but it was thought proper to punish, with the utmost
severity, such an atrocious attempt. He was accordingly
apprehended, and, though the wound was not mortal, condemned to
be broke. When this dreadful sentence was executed, he cried out,
that it was hard he should undergo such torments, for having
wounded a worthless priest, by whom he had been injured, while
such-a-one (naming the burgher mentioned above) lived in ease and
security, after having brutally murdered a poor man, and a
helpless woman big with child, who had not given him the least
provocation.
The inhabitants of Boulogne may be divided into three classes;
the noblesse or gentry, the burghers, and the canaille. I don't
mention the clergy, and the people belonging to the law, because
I shall occasionally trouble you with my thoughts upon the
religion and ecclesiastics of this country; and as for the
lawyers, exclusive of their profession, they may be considered as
belonging to one or other of these divisions. The noblesse are
vain, proud, poor, and slothful. Very few of them have above six
thousand livres a year, which may amount to about two hundred and
fifty pounds sterling; and many of them have not half this
revenue. I think there is one heiress, said to be worth one
hundred thousand livres, about four thousand two hundred pounds;
but then her jewels, her cloaths, and even her linen, are
reckoned part of this fortune. The noblesse have not the common
sense to reside at their houses in the country, where, by farming
their own grounds, they might live at a small expence, and
improve their estates at the same time. They allow their country
houses to go to decay, and their gardens and fields to waste; and
reside in dark holes in the Upper Town of Boulogne without light,
air, or convenience. There they starve within doors,
that they may have wherewithal to purchase fine cloaths, and
appear dressed once a day in the church, or on the rampart. They
have no education, no taste for reading, no housewifery, nor
indeed any earthly occupation, but that of dressing their hair,
and adorning their bodies. They hate walking, and would never go
abroad, if they were not stimulated by the vanity of being seen.
I ought to except indeed those who turn devotees, and spend the
greatest part of their time with the priest, either at church or
in their own houses. Other amusements they have none in this
place, except private parties of card-playing, which are far from
being expensive. Nothing can be more parsimonious than the
oeconomy of these people: they live upon soupe and bouille, fish
and sallad: they never think of giving dinners, or entertaining
their friends; they even save the expence of coffee and tea,
though both are very cheap at Boulogne. They presume that every
person drinks coffee at home, immediately after dinner, which is
always over by one o'clock; and, in lieu of tea in the afternoon,
they treat with a glass of sherbet, or capillaire. In a word, I
know not a more insignificant set of mortals than the noblesse of
Boulogne; helpless in themselves, and useless to the community;
without dignity, sense, or sentiment; contemptible from pride.
and ridiculous from vanity. They pretend to be jealous of their
rank, and will entertain no correspondence with the merchants,
whom they term plebeians. They likewise keep at a great distance
from strangers, on pretence of a delicacy in the article of
punctilio: but, as I am informed, this stateliness is in a great
measure affected, in order to conceal their poverty, which would
appear to greater disadvantage, if they admitted of a more
familiar communication. Considering the vivacity of the French
people, one would imagine they could not possibly lead such an
insipid life, altogether unanimated by society, or diversion.
True it is, the only profane diversions of this place are a
puppet-show and a mountebank; but then their religion affords a
perpetual comedy. Their high masses, their feasts, their
processions, their pilgrimages, confessions, images, tapers,
robes, incense, benedictions, spectacles, representations, and
innumerable ceremonies, which revolve almost incessantly, furnish
a variety of entertainment from one end of the year to the other.
If superstition implies fear, never was a word more misapplied
than it is to the mummery of the religion of Rome. The people are
so far from being impressed with awe and religious terror by this
sort of machinery, that it amuses their imaginations in the most
agreeable manner, and keeps them always in good humour. A Roman
catholic longs as impatiently for the festival of St. Suaire, or
St. Croix, or St. Veronique, as a schoolboy in England for the
representation of punch and the devil; and there is generally as
much laughing at one farce as at the other. Even when the descent
from the cross is acted, in the holy week, with all the
circumstances that ought naturally to inspire the gravest
sentiments, if you cast your eyes among the multitude that croud
the place, you will not discover one melancholy face: all is
prattling, tittering, or laughing; and ten to one but you
perceive a number of them employed in hissing the female who
personates the Virgin Mary.
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