From all this there resulted, as Madame de L. assures us, a certain
innocence and kindliness of character, joined with great hardihood and
gaiety,--which reminds us of Henry IV. and his Béarnois,--and carries
with it, perhaps on account of that association, an idea of something
more chivalrous and romantic--more honest and unsophisticated, than
any thing we expect to meet with in this modern world of artifice and
derision. There was great purity of morals accordingly, Mad. de
L. informs us, and general cheerfulness and content in all this
district;--crimes were never heard of, and lawsuits almost unknown.
Though not very well educated, the population was exceedingly
devout;--though theirs was a kind of superstitious and traditional
devotion, it must he owned, rather than an enlightened or rational
faith. They had the greatest veneration for crucifixes and images of
their saints, and had no idea of any duty more imperious than that of
attending on all the solemnities of religion. They were singularly
attached also to their curés, who were almost all born and bred in the
country, spoke their _patois_, and shared in all their pastimes and
occupations. When a hunting-match was to take place, the clergyman
announced it from the pulpit after prayers,--and then took his
fowling-piece, and accompanied his congregation to the thicket. It was
on behalf of these curés, in fact, that the first disturbances were
excited.--_Edin. Rev. for Feb._ 1816.]

This luxuriance of growth does not proceed entirely from the moisture
supplied by the ditches and drains; the soil naturally is uncommonly
fertile: and whatever springs from it, whether planted by the hand of
man, and nourished, while growing, by his attention and skill, or its
spontaneous production, bears witness to this uncommon fertility.
The country abounds in corn and vineyards; the produce of the latter