The Diligent Traveller
A Frenchman in England, 1784. By Frangois de is Rochefoucauld. (Cambridge. 8s. lid.)
Tan Mélanges sur l'Angleterre of Francois de la Rochefoucauld, which have now been edited by M. Jean Marchand and trans- lated by Mr. S. C. Roberts, are so good that we English readers will be tempted to forget the author in our hurry to begin the time-honoured pastime of Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us. But the author deserves a moment's admiration. It is hard to believe that he was only eighteen when he and his brother and Maximilien de Lazowski came over to England on the tour which he recorded for his father. The party landed at Dover on January 2nd, 1784. After a short stay in London, they went on to Bury, partly because Horace Walpole advised the drier side of Britain, and partly to be near Arthur Young, the great agriculturist. They made several friends, learned the language, and did their best with English country society. Francois noted with some surprise that the English had no phrase for " Je m'ennuie." Throughout his stay, and on the tours of Suffolk and Norfolk, he was noticing, recording, admiring, and criticising with inexhaustible diligence : and yet the Mélanges are not only balanced, sound and acute, but wholly delightful. He insists continually on the prevailing atmosphere of comfort : " At Dover I remarked from the first that atmosphere of comfort which characterises the country into which I was entering ; I observed that all classes of people—peasants from the neighbouring country, servants even—were well clad and remarkably clean ; that the furniture in their houses was all of mahogany, even in our inn ; that they had plenty of those tables which are so dear in France. I saw many carts drawn by fine horses with good harness such as would involve an expense which our farmers could not face. I was charmed with all this from the first time that I saw it—I felt myself transported into another world."
He refers almost as frequently to the English lack of manners. " We found our host to be a real character," he says on one occasion, " typically English, full of good nature, and entirely lacking in polite manners." His descriptions of dinners and of various parties certainly bear out the stricture. Once at least it is difficult not to believe that he is a Victorian grand- father lecturing his young : " . . all the young people whom I have met in society in Bury give the impression of being what we should call badly brought up': they hum under their breath, they whistle, they sit down in a large arm-chair and put their feet on another, they sit on any table in the room and do a thousand other things which would be ridiculous in France, but are done quite naturally in England."
" What I have said on this topic," he goes on with some hauteur, " is quite strictly accurate." So, without doubt, is his miserable description of an English Sunday, and his criticisms of English dancing, tea-drinking, and the club habit. These are the things we love to read. They always apply to our neighbours—never to ourselves ; and therefore, though a hundred and fifty years old, no progress has put them out
of date.
Statistically, the Melanges provide much food for com- parison. A factory hand at Sudbury gets twelve shillings a week, but farm labourers are much better paid. The British Museum is open for three hours in each day for not more than ten persons. On p. 6 la Rochefoucauld gives the cost of is post-chaise as eleven shillings an hour ; but later, when he is familiar with English currency, he gives the proper price of elevenpence, excluding tips. On agriculture, he is always interesting—as, with Young for friend, he could hardly fail to be. his praise of English farmers and of English horses will win everyone's hearts, and so will his strong but by no Means uncritical love of English things in general. Ile is seldom ironic, though he writes with steady humour, and never biased or flippant. It is, indeed, very nearly depressing to find him so regularly receiving the right impressions, and so studious to record them. One reads with some relief, near the end of the book, that his account of the Norfolk tour was left unfinished for no better reason than " because we enjoyed ourselves too much at Holkham (where they were visiting Mr. and Mrs. Coke) to have time for writing."
MONICA REDLICH.
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