There used to be a ridiculous monument of the Duke of Wellington on Constitution Hill, and now there is a very noble one by Alfred Stevens in St. Paul’s. The same terms of utter contempt were applied by a French critic to the work of the man of genius that Frenchmen formerly applied to the monstrosity. He could not endure any kind of monument to Wellington. CHAPTER II VARIETY IN FRANCE The _Rue de Rivoli_, the _Champs Elysées_, and the _Boulevard des Italiens_ are familiar to the travelling English, but they know little of provincial France, and they reciprocate, in a great degree, the French indifference about provincial England. Both nations prefer travelling in Switzerland and Italy to visiting each other. This encourages the notion of uniformity which would be greatly modified by a more detailed acquaintance with the provinces. [Sidenote: Physical Geography.] [Sidenote: Effects on Population.] The variety in the physical geography of France, and in the climate, would be enough already to lead one to expect a corresponding variety in human characteristics. We find in the British Islands that the mountaineers are unlike the inhabitants of the plains, that the people of the north, whose climate is severe, are in some respects unlike those of the south, whose climate is milder, that the maritime population differs from the inland population and the manufacturing from the agricultural. The Englishman is familiar with these contrasts in his own country, yet instead of expecting them in France he supposes French people to be all alike. [Sidenote: The Size of France.] [Sidenote: The French Highlands.] [Sidenote: French Coasts.] [Sidenote: Atlantic.] [Sidenote: Mediterranean.] [Sidenote: Varieties of French Climate.]