everence which a Frenchman of that
day paid to his hair. In tracing the origin of this superstition he
exhibits casually his historical learning. The crine profuso and barba
demissa of the reges crinitos, as the Merovingians were called, are
often referred to by ancient chroniclers. Long hair was identified with
right of succession, as a mark of royal race, and the maintenance of
ancient tradition. A tondu signified a slave, and even under the
Carolingians to shave a prince meant to affirm his exclusion from the
succession.

V

A general improvement in English roads, roadside inns, and methods of
conveyance commenced about 1715. The continental roads lagged behind,
until when Arthur Young wrote in 1788-89 they had got badly into
arrears. The pace of locomotion between Rome and England changed very
little in effect from the days of Julius Caesar to those of George III.
It has been said with point that Trajan and Sir Robert Peel, travelling
both at their utmost speed achieved the distance between Rome and
London in an almost precisely similar space of time. Smollett decided
to travel post between Paris and Lyons, and he found that the journey
lasted full five days and cost upwards of thirty guineas. [One of the
earliest printed road books in existence gives the posts between Paris
and Lyons. This tiny duodecimo, dated 1500, and more than worth its
weight in gold has just been acquired by the British Museum. On the old
Roman routes, see Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, 1842.] Of roads
there was a choice between two. The shorter route by Nevers and Moulins
amounted to just about three hundred English miles. The longer route by
Auxerre and Dijon, which Smollett preferred extended to three hundred
and thirty miles. The two roads diverged after passing Fontainebleau,
the shorter by Nemours and the longer by Moret. The first road was the
smoother, but apart from the chance of seeing the Vendange the route de
Burgoyne was far the more picturesque. Smollett's portraiture of the
peasantry in the less cultivated regions prepares the mind for Young's
famous description of those "gaunt emblems of famine." In Burgundy the
Doctor says, "I saw a peasant ploughing the ground with a jackass, a
lean cow, and a he-goat yoked together." His vignette of the fantastic
petit-maitre at Sens, and his own abominable rudeness, is worthy of the
master hand that drew the poor debtor Jackson in the Marshalsea in
Roderick Random.

His frank a