Monsieur François de Neufchâteau’s house is of moderate size, the gardens large and well disposed. The barns and other out-houses make a respectable appearance, but I perceive none of the animals essential to husbandry or a thrifty farmyard. Most of the ground we went over had been sown. I perceived, however, no grass or meadow land. The French are an age behind us in this branch of agriculture. All the arable land was well cleared and showed care and attention had been bestowed upon it. But I saw no yards, either near or distant to the house, for raising poultry or pigs, &c., which constitute no small proportion of the wealth of a well-managed farm. After we had sufficiently viewed the general distribution of the grounds, we examined the improved drill plough, to inspect which had been the principal object of our journey. But I discovered not a single property in it which is not already known to the English agriculturist. [Sidenote: FRANÇOIS DE NEUFCHÂTEAU] Perhaps I am wrong in thus entering into the particulars of a farm which, though in a very satisfactory state, promises to be much better when the owner’s attention can be spared upon it. The house has not long been in the possession of its present proprietor. There are only two bedrooms furnished and not one sitting-room, though there is an excellent library, containing many beautiful editions of the most celebrated works. The gallery upon the first floor contains some interesting plans and drawings of canals and other public works of France, conceived, executed or repaired when M. de Neufchâteau was Minister of the Interior. Monsieur Nicholas François, for that is his real and only proper name, was born at the village of Neufchâteau, where he married a woman like himself of humble parentage, and endeavoured to live by writing poetry and scribbling nonsensical verses. He is the first instance in the history of nations of a poet who exchanged his tattered garments for the mantle of a chief magistrate. M. François being cast upon the surface of the revolutionary cauldron, contributed his humble mite in the holy work of human regeneration, under a variety of Protean shapes, sometimes as a punster in the public journals, at other times by striking off a few _calembours_ and diatribes and then by some fine-spun antitheses, and next by fulsome adulations heaped on the great scoundrels who have successively disturbed the peace of France and of mankind. M. François contrived to at length receive the reward of his indefatigable labours, in the appointment to the very arduous and important functions of Minister of the Interior to the French Revolution.