Arthur Young, who traveled over France between 1787 and 1789, is surprised to find at once such a vital center and such dead extremities.

Between Paris and Versailles the double file of vehicles going and coming extends uninterruptedly for five leagues from morning till night.[1333] The contrast on other roads is very great.
Leaving Paris by the Orleans road, says Arthur Young, "we met not one stage or diligence for ten miles; only two messageries and very few chaises, not a tenth of what would have been met had we been leaving London at the same hour." On the highroad near Narbonne, "for thirty-six miles," he says, "I came across but one cabriolet, half a dozen carts and a few women leading asses." Elsewhere, near St.Girons, he notices that in two hundred and fifty miles he encountered in all, "two cabriolets and three miserable things similar to our old one-horse post chaise, and not one gentleman." Throughout this country the inns are execrable; it is impossible to hire a wagon, while in England, even in a town of fifteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants, there are comfortable hotels and every means of transport.

This proves that in France "there is no circulation." It is only in very large towns that there is any civilization and comfort.

At Nantes there is a superb theater "twice as large as Drury-Lane and five times as magnificent.

Mon Dieu! I cried to myself, do all these wastes, moors, and deserts, that I have passed for 300 miles lead to this spectacle?
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