Our inn at Rouane was execrable beyond measure. Without any regard to decency, we were introduced into a sleeping room with three beds, and informed that Monsieur and Madame Younge were to sleep in one, Mademoiselle St. Sillery in another, and myself in the third. It was not without difficulty that I could procure another arrangement. The beds, moreover, were without pillows. From Rouane to Bresle the country assumes a mountainous form, and the road is bordered with chesnut trees. We had got now into the district of mulberries, and we passed innumerable trees of them. Like other fruit-trees, they grow wild, in the middle of fields, hedge-rows, and by the road side. A stranger travelling in France is led to conclude, that there is no such thing as property in fruit. Every one may certainly gather as much as he chuses for his own immediate use. The peasants of this part of the province are land proprietors; some of them possess twelve or fourteen acres, others an hill, others a garden or a single field. They appeared poor but comfortable. They raise a great quantity of poultry and pigs, and reminded me very forcibly of the Negroes in the West India Islands--a hard-working, happy, and cheerful race. I should not, perhaps, omit to mention, that the houses of the peasants were very different from any that I had yet seen. For the most part, they are square, white, and with flat roofs. They are almost totally without glass in the windows; but the climate is generally so dry and delightful, that glass perhaps would rather be an annoyance. We are apt to attach ideas of comfort or misery according to circumstances peculiarly belonging to ourselves. Tell an English peasant that a Frenchman has neither glass to his windows, nor sheets to his bed, and he will conclude him to be miserable in the extreme. On the other hand, tell a French peasant, that an English rustic never tastes a glass of wine once in seven years, and he will equally pity the Englishman.