It is, however, a thing that in the present style of manners in France would not be met with from Calais to Bayonne except, by chance, in the house of some great lord that had been much in England, and then not unless it was asked for.

The nobility in France have no more idea of practicing agriculture, and making it a subject of conversation, except on the mere theory, as they would speak of a loom or a bowsprit, than of any other object the most remote from their habits and pursuits." Through tradition, fashion and deliberation, they are, and wish only to be, people of society; their sole concern is to talk and to hunt.

Never have the leaders of men so unlearned the art of leading men; the art which consists of marching along the same pathway with them, but at the head, and directing their labor by sharing in it .-- Our Englishman, an eye-witness and competent, again writes: "Thus it is whenever you stumble on a grand seignior, even one that was worth millions, you are sure to find his property desert.

Those of the Duc de Bouillon and of the Prince de Soubise are two of the greatest properties in France; and all the signs I have yet seen of their greatness are heaths, moors, deserts, and brackens.

Go to their residence, wherever it may be, and you would probably find them in the midst of a forest very well peopled with deer, wild boars and wolves." "The great proprietors," says another contemporary,[1340] "attracted to and kept in our cities by luxurious enjoyments know nothing of their estates," save "of their agents whom they harass for the support of a ruinous ostentation.