CONCLUDING REMARKS.

They are uniformly opposed to a revolution, as putting their property in jeopardy. The clergy of the national establishment, all who are in any manner connected with it, and all whom they can influence; all holding offices of power, honor or profit, or sinecure places under the government; and all privileged orders, are of course its supporters; add to these, most men of property and prosperous business, who dread a revolution as putting their dearest interests at hazard.

CHAPTER III.

France. Its extent in 1824. Its agriculture and productions. Internal improvements. Canal of Languedoc. Rail Roads. Manufactures. Commerce. Military and naval strength. Public debt and revenue. Religion. Changes occasioned by the Revolution. Number of Roman Catholic clergy before and since the revolution. Government of France. Present constitution of France. Revolu tion of 1830. Present reigning family of France. Character and anecdotes of Phillippe first. Of his father, the duke of Orleans. Talleyrand. Paris. Its population, commerce, and police. Bordeaux. Havre. French colonial possessions. Present state of our relations with France. Spain. Population. Strength. Government. Ecclesiastical establishment. Inquisition. Its proceedings. Torture. Auto de Fe. Number of convicts. Spanish character. Madrid. Cadiz. Bull fights. Sheep and wool. Colonies. Cuba. Canaries. Andorra. Portugal. Population. Strength. Religious establishment. Convents. Government. Commerce. Agricullure. Education. Lisbon. Oporto. Colonies. Cape Verd. Madeira. Azores.

FRANCE. France, as reduced to its ancient limits at the second restoration of the Bourbons, in 1815, lies between latitude 42° and 51° north. Its greatest extent, from Dunkirk in the north, to the Pyrenees, is 625 miles, and about the same distance from the most easterly point of Alsace, to the western point of Bretange, containing 213,800 square miles. The number of inhabitants, according to the latest census, is 33,600,000, averaging about 150 to the square mile. It is bounded on the north by the English channel and the Netherlands, on the east by Germany and the Alps of Switzerland, on the south by the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, and on the west by the Atlantic. Baron Dupin, an eminent writer on the Statistics of France, estimates a profit of three and a half per cent. on French capital employed in agriculture.

Previous to the revolution, land was burthened with an annual tax of $100,000,000. Most of the cultivators were tenants at will, and the rent paid was chiefly in kind, being one half of the produce. The tenants also labored under several oppres sive feudal restraints. Weeding and hoeing were prohibited, lest the young patridges should be disturbed. Game of the greater species, consisting of droves of wild hogs, and herds of deer, which the farmers were not allowed to kill, wandered

about unmolested over the country, to the destruction of the crops. The Corvee, or labor upon the public roads and bridges, also fell heavy on the tenantry. One of the beneficial results to be credited to the revolution, as an offset for a portion of its evils, is the abolition of these feudal burdens. Another is the conversion of the estates of the church and nobility into national domains; and the sale of them in small portions, and on easy terms, to farmers, which has enabled the actual tenants and laborers to become proprietors in fee. The number of this description of persons has more than doubled since 1789. Agriculture is the principal business and source of wealth in France, to which its fine soil and climate strongly invites. It is not, however, managed so judiciously or profitably as in England. Rotation of crops is little practiced. Wheat in the best cultivated districts, produces an average of eighteen bushels to the acre; the English farmer obtains twenty-five. The number of horses and mules in France, is estimated at 2,500,000; of horned cattle 7,000,000; and of sheep 45,000,000. Great attention is paid to the cultivation of the vine. French wines and brandies are universally celebrated. The annual production of both is estimated at $40,000,000. The temperance reformation has produced a sensible diminution of the export of brandy from Bordeaux to the United States.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. France is far behind England in internal improvements. Its practicable roads are not more than one third in proportion to its extent. It has 900 miles in length of canals, about one third as many as in Great Britain. The principal work of this kind is the canal of Languedoc, uniting the waters of the Atlantic with the Mediterranean. It commences at the mouth of the Garonne, near Bordeaux, on the Atlantic, and enters the Mediterranean at the city of Cette. It was commenced in 1664, and finished in fourteen years, at an expense of $6,000,000, which, considering the difference in the value of money, is equal to $12,000,000 in 1830. It was one of the most splendid works of Louis XIV., the most powerful monarch of the age. The canal passes under a mountain by a tunnel 720 feet in length, a work then entirely novel, though now common. The other canals connect the interior with the Atlantic. Rail roads are of modern date in France; the first to any extent, was commenced in 1825. Since that time, various others have been projected, and are in different stages of progress. The most important one is from Paris to Havre, connecting the capital with its seaport, being a distance of 112 miles. The annual transportation on this line is estimated at 300,000 tons.

MANUFACTURING. Another point in which France is much behind Great Britain, is in the application of steam and water

COMMERCE. PUBLIC DEBT AND REVENUE.

power to manufacturing purposes. This is estimated by M. Dupin, to be equal in France to the labor of 680,000 men, and in Great Britain to ten times that amount; and all the power derived from machinery of every kind, and applied to the purposes of industry in France, is supposed to be equal only to one fourth of that of England.

In the early stages of the colonization of America, France was one of the principal agents. Previous to the war of 1756, she claimed, under the name of Canada and Louisiana, much the greater part of the North American Continent. By the peace which terminated that war in 1763, she lost all her North American continental possessions, and became in relation to a navy and colonies, a second rate power. Since that period she has lost her most valuable East and West India colonies.

COMMERCE. By a late estimate, her exports are stated at $80,000,000, more than $10,000,000 of which, in silks, fine cotton, wine, and brandy, were to the United States, being more than to any other nation; they are paid for in cotton, the raw material for her manufactures, and tobacco. Her imports are stated at $82,000,000, a great portion of which is in raw material; no article being admitted which her own labor or soil can produce. The number of sailors employed in the commerce of France, since its revival after the long continued wars, is 330,000. The French navy consists of thirty-six ships of the line, thirty-five frigates, eight steam ships, and 186 small vessels, manned by 15,000 seamen. Next to Great Britain she is the greatest naval power in Europe, but so far inferior to her, that in case of a war, the French navy would serve but little other purpose than to increase that of her enemy. Her army exceeds any in Europe except that of Russia, and enables her to take an active and decided part in the contests which disturb that portion of the world. Every Frenchman is enrolled at the age of twenty, and bound to serve, if required, eight years in the army. After such service he looses all desire to return to civil life, becomes unqualified for its duties, and willing to continue in the army. From such an arrangement the French government are never in want of veteran soldiers. The military peace establishment of France exceeds 200,000 men.

PUBLIC DEBT AND REVENUE. The public debt in 1829 amounted to $552,000,000. Her annual revenue to $178,408,227, and expenditures to $163,573,508. Balance in favor of her exchequer, $14,934,719. The foregoing is taken from Baron Dupin's statistics; the sums are there put down in francs of eighteen cents and four mills each, and are sufficiently accurate for the purpose of a general view. They are here stated in dollars, more readily to give the reader a definite idea of the amount.

RELIGION.

RELIGION. The state religion of France from the earliest periods of its history has been the Roman Catholic. At one time the reformation made considerable progress in the kingdom, but was effectually suppressed by the massacre or banishment of all the Huguenots, as the reformers were called. Since that time only a very limited toleration was indulged until the revolution. At that period the Roman Catholic establishment consisted of 136 arch bishops and bishops, 6800 canons and priests attached to the cathedrals, and collegiate churches, 50,400 curates, 18,000 vicars, 16,000 ecclesiastics with or without benefices, 600 canonesses, 31,000 monks, 27,000 nuns, and 10,000 servants of the church, making a total of 160,000. The catholic population of France is computed at 25,000,000. The ecclesiastics are about one to one hundred and sixty souls, or one to twenty families of eight persons each; their income is $22,264,000, in the aggregate, but enjoyed principally by the bishops and high dignitaries, leaving but a scanty subsistence to the working clergy as they are called, or the actual instructors of the people.

The religion of France underwent various changes during the revolution. At one time it degenerated nearly into atheism, the reformers worshipping certain imaginary objects, under the name of virtues. They abolished the ordinary division of time into weeks, substituting in their place decades, or periods of ten days, and every tenth day for a Sabbath, devoted to the worship of their divinity. This system continued from September, 1792, to September, 1805, when Napoleon abolished it, to the great satisfaction of his subjects, and restored the Gregorian calendar, and the Roman catholic religion. The pope purchased these favors by the sacrifice of principle, in consenting to crown him, whom he had frequently denounced as a usurper, and afterwards sanctioned his divorce without any other reason than Napoleon's pleasure. By the revolution of 1830, the Roman catholic religion ceased to be the state religion of France. With some provision for present incumbents, the American principle of separating the religious from the civil concerns of the nation was adopted.

The Orleans dynasty of 1830 has been the patron of education. In the present French cabinet is a minister of public instruction, having its general superintendence throughout the kingdom. In a report to the king on the subject of his charge in 1833, the minister, Gaigot, declared that no national education not founded on Christianity, can be of any essential benefit in France, and that the religion of the Bible should be made the basis of public instruction, and directed that the New Testament should be put into the hands of every child in the public schools. The number of newspapers published in the kingdom in 1832, was 343, one half of which were published at Paris.