"You are right: it is a fine territory: it might be the first agricultural country in Europe: there is hardly a square league of ground in it that is not suitable to some useful vegetable production. We have none of the cold clays nor barren heathtracts of Great Britain; our mountains all admit of pasturage to their tops, or are productive of wood; and our climate is so genial that even the bare limestone rocks of Provence yield, as you are aware, the finest grapes. Here, in the midst of the Monts Dor, you will come upon those vast primæval forests of the silver-fir which have never been disturbed from the time of their erection, and you will judge for yourself how rich even this district really is. Look at our rivers: at our boundless plains, covered with corn and wine, and oil: and yet allowed to stand fallow one year in three. My good friends in Scotland--for, believe me, I shall ever remember with gratitude my stay in Edinburgh--do not farm their lands in our slovenly fashion. France, depend upon it, might be made, and I believe it will ultimately become, one of the richest and most prosperous countries of Europe. The wealth of England is fleeting: when you come to lose India and others of your colonies--and 'twill be your fate sooner or later, your power will, with your trade, fall to the ground: and, like your predecessors in a similar career, the Portuguese and the Dutch, you must infallibly become a second or third-rate power. France is solid and compact: her wealth lies in her land: you cannot break up that: she exists now, and is great without any colony worthy of mention: and she cannot but increase. Even Spain, from her mere geographical size and position, has a better chance of political longevity than England." "And yet Spain is rather decrepid at present, you will admit, M. le Comte." "True; but a century, you know, is nothing in the life of a nation:--England, to speak the truth, was only a second-rate power until the reign of George the Second. She has still her social revolution to go through: and whatever has been effected for the benefit of this country would have come without the Revolution: and it was paying rather dear to destroy the whole framework of society for what we should certainly have attained by easy and more natural means. It is a fearful catastrophe to break up all the old ideas and feelings of a people, merely to substitute in their place something new--you know not what: better or worse--and most probably the latter. Add to this, that the results of the Revolution have fully borne out what I maintain: we are neither better nor happier than we should have been had we gone on as usual: other countries which have not been revolutionised are just as happy and prosperous as we are." "But then the more equal distribution of property, M. le Comte; has not this effected some good?"