We passed last Sunday with Mr. de ____’s tenants in the country.   Nothing
can equal the avidity of these people for news.   We sat down after dinner
under some trees in the village, and Mr. de _____ began reading the
Gazette to the farmers who were about us.   In a few minutes every thing
that could hear (for I leave understanding the pedantry of a French
newspaper out of the question) were his auditors.   A party at quoits in
one field, and a dancing party in another, quitted their amusements, and
listened with undivided attention.   I believe in general the farmers are
the people most contented with the revolution, and indeed they have
reason to be so; for at present they refuse to sell their corn unless for
money, while they pay their rent in assignats; and farms being for the
most part on leases, the objections of the landlord to this kind of
payment are of no avail.   Great encouragement is likewise held out to
them to purchase national property, which I am informed they do to an
extent that may for some time be injurious to agriculture; for in their
eagerness to acquire land, the deprive themselves of cultivating it. 
They do not, like our crusading ancestors, “sell the pasture to buy the
horse,” but the horse to buy the pasture; so that we may expect to see in
many places large farms in the hands of those who are obliged to neglect
them.

A great change has happened within the last year, with regard to landed property—­so much has been sold, that many farmers have had the opportunity of becoming proprietors.  The rage of emigration, which the approach of war, pride, timidity, and vanity are daily increasing, has occasioned many of the Noblesse to sell their estates, which, with those of the Crown and the Clergy, form a large mass of property, thrown as it were into general circulation.  This may in future be beneficial to the country, but the present generation will perhaps have to purchase (and not cheaply) advantages they cannot enjoy.  A philanthropist may not think of this with regret; and yet I know not why one race is preferable to another, or why an evil should be endured by those who exist now, in order that those who succeed may be free from it.—­I would willingly plant a million of acorns, that another age might be supplied with oaks; but I confess, I do not think it quite so pleasant for us to want bread, in order that our descendants may have a superfluity.

I am half ashamed of these selfish arguments; but really I have been led to them through mere apprehension of what I fear the people may have yet to endure, in consequence of the revolution.