rogresses and Magnificence.--French Carriages and Horses.--Modes of
Conveyance.--Drunkenness.--French Criminal Justice.--Marvellous Stories
of the Police.

To CAPT. M. PERRY, U.S.N.

I am often in the saddle since our removal to St. Ouen. I first
commenced the business of exploring in the cabriolet, with my wife for a
companion, during which time, several very pretty drives, of whose
existence one journeying along the great roads would form no idea, were
discovered. At last, as these became exhausted, I mounted, and pricked
into the fields. The result has been a better knowledge of the details
of ordinary rural life, in this country, than a stranger would get by a
residence, after the ordinary fashion, of years.

I found the vast plain intersected by roads as intricate as the veins of
the human body. The comparison is not unapt, by the way, and may be even
carried out much further; for the _grandes routes_ can be compared to
the arteries, the _chemins vicinaux_, or cross-roads, to the veins, and
the innumerable paths that intersect the fields, in all directions, to
the more minute blood-vessels, circulation being the object common to
all.

I mount my horse and gallop into the fields at random, merely taking
care not to quit the paths. By the latter, one can go in almost any
direction; and as they are very winding there is a certain pleasure in
following their sinuosities, doubtful whither they tend. Much of the
plain is in vegetables, for the use of Paris; though there is
occasionally a vineyard, or a field of grain. The weather has become
settled and autumnal, and is equally without the chilling moisture of
the winter, or the fickleness of the spring. The kind-hearted peasants
see me pass among them without distrust, and my salutations are answered
with cheerfulness and civility. Even at this trifling distance from the
capital, I miss the brusque ferocity that is so apt to characterise the
deportment of its lower classes, who are truly the people that Voltaire
has described as "ou singes, ou tigres." Nothing, I think, strikes an
American more than the marked difference between the town and country of
France. With us, the towns are less town-like, and the country less
country-like, than is usually the case. Our towns are provincial from
the want of tone that can only be acquired by time, while it is a fault
with our country to wish to imitate the towns. I now allude to habits
only, for nature at home, owing to the