[COMPLETE] "Travels in France" by Arthur Young During the Years 1787, 1788, 1789 - dc

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » September 28th, 2021, 7:48 am

Hi Barbara,

Section 6 is up:

24:58

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_06_young_128kb.mp3

My best,

Pam

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » September 30th, 2021, 9:34 pm

pnagami wrote: ↑September 28th, 2021, 7:48 am Hi Barbara,

Section 6 is up:

24:58

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_06_young_128kb.mp3

My best,

Pam

He's covering some interesting territory in a hurry. PL OK.

The countryside through which the Dordogne wound remains in my memory as magical. I wished we could have spent more time there.

Best,

Barbara

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 1st, 2021, 5:36 am

Ah lucky you, Barbara. I see you have made the grand tour of France! My travels there have been more limited, so you are a good co-pilot!

Thanks!

Pam

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 2nd, 2021, 6:24 am

Hi Barbara,

Section 7 is up:

26:05

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_07_young_128kb.mp3

The picturesque, the romantic, the Burkean sublime!

Pam

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » October 2nd, 2021, 8:26 pm

pnagami wrote: ↑October 2nd, 2021, 6:24 am Hi Barbara,

Section 7 is up:

26:05

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_07_young_128kb.mp3

The picturesque, the romantic, the Burkean sublime!

Pam

Yes, I googled some images of the region.

PL OK.

Barbara

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 3rd, 2021, 3:54 am

Thank you, Barbara!

Pam

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 7th, 2021, 5:43 am

Hi Barbara,

Section 8 is up:

28:10

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_08_young_128kb.mp3

I had a nice Nîmes experience very like Arthur's.

My best,

Pam

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » October 8th, 2021, 1:59 am

pnagami wrote: ↑October 7th, 2021, 5:43 am Hi Barbara,

Section 8 is up:

28:10

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_08_young_128kb.mp3

I had a nice Nîmes experience very like Arthur's.

Lucky you! PL OK, of course, and a very interesting section. It made me want to travel. I missed Nîmes though I think I might have seen the aqueduct in the distance (or am I imagining that?)

In the 1780s Mme de La Tour du Pin was a teenager accompanying her uncle the Archbishop to the annual meeting of the Estates of Languedoc, of which he was president. She too remarks on the dramatic improvement in the roads as the carriage entered Languedoc. Wikipedia says: "he was responsible [among other things] for "many works of public utility, bridges, canals, roads, harbours, etc....". She met up with him in London after the Revolution. It's been a while so you probably don't remember PLing it.

I was interested to read that his body was one of the famous remains that were recently disinterred during excavations for St Pancras station. It was returned, minus his museum-quality dentures, and re-interred with great ceremony in Narbonne Cathedral.

Barbara

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 8th, 2021, 3:46 am

Hi Barbara,

This is all so interesting and adds a lot to my enjoyment!

I remember Madame de la Tour du Pin very well, but didn't remember this bit.

Amazing.

Thanks!

Pam

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 11th, 2021, 5:24 am

Hi Barbara,

Section 9 is up:

22:04

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_09_young_128kb.mp3

No prosperous and mobile middle class in France in 1787, hence poor inns!

My best,

Pam

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » October 12th, 2021, 5:12 am

pnagami wrote: ↑October 11th, 2021, 5:24 am Hi Barbara,

Section 9 is up:

22:04

https://librivox.org/uploads/craigdav1/travelsinfrance_09_young_128kb.mp3

No prosperous and mobile middle class in France in 1787, hence poor inns!

My best,

Pam

PL OK. Did it strike you that Arthur Young was travelling through a great number of rural towns as opposed to just villages? compared with the number of rural towns we travel through in the UK even today? On a hunch I googled and these are phrases I copied:

"At the end of the C18 France had about 3 times the population of Great Britain". "It was richer than Great Britain" (but, as you point out, there was no prosperous and mobile middle class). It had "high birth rates and declining infant mortality". But "the agricultural and climatic problems of the 1770s and 1780s led to an important increase in poverty".

Just speculating...

Barbara

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 12th, 2021, 5:28 am

Thank you, Barbara!

That's a hard one. I do know that France had an immense demographic advantage in all her 18th century wars--she just had more people. However, most of her peasantry had, like the Irish, no incentive to improve their holdings, and many had absentee landlords who let things run to rack and ruin. The kings of France were lulled into complacency by having a large population to tax, but unlike Britain, did not take sufficient care of their financial credit at home and abroad. So despite its smaller population, I think England's elastic credit fostered middle and upper class prosperity and allowed her to wage wars by borrowing money when needed.

I do not know much about agricultural cycles in France, but I know they were important. There were agricultural famines in the early 18th century, which allowed Louis XIV to recruit hungry peasants to his army.

My best,

Pam

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » October 12th, 2021, 5:49 am

Thanks Pam. (I was editing when you posted).

Possibly irrelevant....

Blest paper credit: last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly …
Pregnant with thousands slips the scrap unseen,
And silent buys a king — or sells a queen.

Best,

Barbara

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 12th, 2021, 5:57 am

Ooh, lovely! You are very learned, I think,

I wonder what year Pope wrote this.

Pam

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » October 13th, 2021, 5:53 am

pnagami wrote: ↑October 12th, 2021, 5:57 am

Ooh, lovely! You are very learned, I think,

I wonder what year Pope wrote this.

Pam

Alas, I am a fraud. Stephen Maturin quotes it in one of the Patrick O'Brian series of books and it was one of those things that surprise you by leaping unbidden to mind.

Best,

Barbara