asked if he would not come into the garden and drink
a glass of wine. The act was a spontaneous one,
and arose from good-nature and high spirits. The
young American entered, and in the course of a conversation
told the company that he was an American. Instantly
the scene changed. He was loudly cheered, and
one man remarked, with very significant gestures and
looks, that “
he came from a republic!”
Nothing would do but that the guest must sit down
and accept of food and wine to an alarming extent.
He was, in fact, made so much of, that he became somewhat
alarmed, for he was young and inexperienced.
I may as well finish the story by saying what was the
truth, that so many of the party begged the privilege
of drinking with him, that he became somewhat giddy
and unfit to retrace his steps. He was unused
to wine, and the moment the Parisians saw it, they
urged him to drink no more, and asking his hotel,
they took him carefully and kindly to it in a carriage,
after an hour or two had passed away and he had pretty
much recovered from his dissipation. Now there
can be no doubt that the enthusiastic politeness of
the artisans, arose from the fact that he was a republican,
and from a great republican country, and such facts
which I have repeatedly witnessed, or heard of, assure
me that the old republican fire is not extinguished
in the hearts of the common people of Paris.
After a frugal dinner at the inn, I sauntered still
further into the country, so as, if possible, to get
a glimpse of the farm-houses. But one cannot
get any fair idea of French agriculture so near Paris.
A great deal of the land is used in cultivating vegetables
for the Paris markets, and this land is scarcely a
specimen of the farms of France, it is more like gardens.
I found a few buildings which were occupied by these
gardeners, and one or two genuine farmers, and while
there was evidently scientific culture bestowed upon
the land, the tools were generally clumsy, and altogether
too heavy for convenience and dispatch. It struck
me as very singular. Paris excels in the manufacturing
of light and graceful articles of almost every kind.
Certainly, in jewelry, cutlery, and all manner of
ornamental articles, it is the first city in the world.
How comes it, then, that so near Paris, agricultural
implements are so far behind the age? I would
by no means have the reader infer that the best of
agricultural tools are not manufactured in France.
Such is not the fact, as the Paris Exhibition proved,
but who buys them? Now is it not a significant
fact, that within a bow-shot of Paris I found tools
in use, which would be laughed at in the free states
of America? The true reason for this, is to be
found in the condition of the French agricultural
laborer. He is ignorant and unambitious.
Where the laborer is intelligent, he will have light
and excellent tools to work with. This is a universal
fact. The slaves of the southern states are in
a state of brutal ignorance, and their agricultural
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