Lyons is connected by a stone bridge with the beautiful village La Guillotiere; it consists of twenty arches, and is upwards of 1200 feet in length. I believe I have before observed, that the provincial bridges, as well as the roads in France, are infinitely superior to any thing of the kind in England, and that the cause of this superiority is, that they are under the controul and supervision of the government. Every thing connected with the facility of general access is considered as of public concern, and therefore as an object of government. In England, the roads are made and mended by the vicinity. In France, this business belongs to the state and to the administration of the province. For many miles from Lyons, the road continued very various, occasionally hill and dale, bordered by hedges, in which were flowers and flowering shrubs, that perfumed the air very delightfully. It is not uncommon to find even orange trees in the open fields: the very air of the country seemed different from any through which I had before passed. There were many of the fields planted with mulberry trees; I observed that this tree seemed to flourish best where nothing else would grow--on stony and gravelly soils. This indeed seems to be the common excellence of the mulberry and the vine, that they may be both cultivated on lands which would otherwise be barren. We passed several flower-mills on the river Gere; a beautiful stream, occasionally very thickly wooded, and passing in a channel, which, as seen from the road, has any appearance but that of a level. The smaller rivers in France, like the bye lanes, are infinitely more beautiful than the larger; the water, passing over a bed of gravel, is limpid and transparent to a degree, and the grounds through which they roll, being left in their natural rudeness, have a character of wildness, romance, and picturesque, which is not to be found in the greater navigable streams. An evening stroll along their banks, would favour the imagination of a poet. I feel some surprize, that a greater proportion of the writers of France are not their descriptive poets. The Gere is animated by numerous flower-mills; there are likewise many paper-mills. They chiefly pleased me by their lovely situation. Mademoiselle St. Sillery repeatedly sung a line of a French song, "O that I were a miller's maid." It is but justice to this lady to say, that she possessed a sensibility to the charms of Nature, which is seldom found in tempers so apparently thoughtless. As we passed several cottages by the road-side, we saw the peasant girls spinning; some of them were working in silk, others in cotton. They all seemed happy, gay, and noisy; and where there were one or two of them together, seemed to interrupt their labour by playing with each other. It is impossible that a people of this kind can feel their labour. Some of them, moreover, were really handsome.