John Francis Marmontel, the son of parents in a humble station, was born in 1723, at the town of Bort, in the Limousin. He has drawn a delightful picture of the comfort and content in which his family lived. “The property on which we all subsisted was very small. Order, domestic arrangement, labour, a little trade, and frugality, kept us above want. Our little garden produced nearly as many vegetables as the consumption of the family required; the orchard afforded us fruits; and our quinces, our apples, and our pears, preserved with the honey of our bees, were, in winter, most exquisite breakfasts for the good old women and children. They were clothed by the small flock of sheep that folded at St. Thomas. My aunts spun the wool, and the hemp of the field that furnished us with linen; and in the evenings, when, by the light of a lamp, which our nut-trees supplied with oil, the young people of the neighbourhood came to help us to dress our flax, the picture was exquisite. The harvest of the little farm secured us subsistence; the wax and honey of the bees, to which one of my aunts carefully attended, formed a revenue that cost but little; the oil pressed from our green walnuts had a taste and smell that we preferred to the flavour and perfume of that of the olive. Our buck-wheat cakes, moistened, smoking hot, with the good butter of Mont d’Or, were a delicious treat to us. I know not what dish would have appeared to us better than our turnips and chesnuts; and on a winter evening, while these fine turnips were roasting round the fire, and we heard the water boiling in the vase where our chesnuts were cooling, so relishing and sweet, how did our hearts palpitate with joy! I well remember, too, the perfume that a fine quince used to exhale when roasting under the ashes, and the pleasure our grandmother used to have in dividing it amongst us. The most moderate of women made us all gluttons. Thus, in a family where nothing was lost, trivial objects united made plenty, and left but little to expend, in order to satisfy all our wants. In the neighbouring forest there was an abundance of dead wood of trifling value—there my father was permitted to make his annual provision. The excellent butter of the mountain, and the most delicate cheese, were common, and cost but little; wine was not dear, and my father himself drank of it soberly.”