f the country--Influx of visitors at this
season--The consequences--Herminie--Her sad history--Le
Morvan--Recommended to the English traveller--Lord Brougham and
Cannes--Contrast between it and Le Morvan 297

LE MORVAN.

CHAPTER I.

English propensity to ramble--Where and how--Le
Morvan--Vezelay--Description of the town--Historical associations
connected with it--Charles IX.--Persecutions of the
Protestants--View from Vezelay--Scenery and wild sports--The
Author--Object of the Work.

Every nation has its characteristics, and amongst those which are
peculiar to the genius of the English people, is their ardent and
insatiable love of wandering.

To locomote is absolutely necessary to every Englishman; in his heart is
profoundly rooted a passion for long journeys; each and all of them, old
and young, healthy and sickly, would if they could take not merely the
grand tour, but circulate round the two hemispheres with all the
pleasure imaginable. At a certain period of the year, when the
weathercock points the right way, the sun burns in the sign of the
Lion, and the husbandman bends his weary form to gather in the golden
corn, the legs of the rich Englishman begin to be nervously agitated, he
feels a sense of suffocation, and pants for change--of air, of place, of
everything; he girds up his loins, and without throwing a glance behind
him, it is Hey, Presto! begone! and he is off. Where?

It is autumn, blessed autumn, the season of harvest and sunny days; the
English are everywhere--they fly from their own dear island like clouds
of chilly swallows, light upon Europe as thick as thrushes in an
orchard, and are soon mingled with every nation of the earth, like the
blue corn flowers in the ripe barley fields. Yes, from north to south,
from east to west, go where you will, you cannot proceed ten miles
without meeting a smiling rosy English girl coquettishly concealed under
her large green veil, and a grave British gentleman, whistling to the
wide world in the sheer enjoyment of having nothing to do but to look at
it.

I have seen green veils climbing the Pyramids; I have seen green veils
diving down into the dark mines of the Oural; I have seen an English
gentleman perched like a chamois on the top of St. Bernard, hat in hand,
roaring "God save the Queen." I have seen some sipping Syracusan wine,
puffing a comfortable cloud from obese cigars, most irreverently seated
in th