A stranger may live at an inn at Amiens for about five shillings, English money, a day. The wine is good, and very cheap; and a daily ordinary, or _table d'hote_, is kept at the _Hotel d'Angleterre_. Breakfast is charged one livre, dinner three, and supper one: half a livre for coffee, and two livres for lodging; but if you remain a week, ten livres for the whole time. The hotels, of which there are two, are as good as those of Paris, and lodgings are far more reasonable. A _restaurateur_ has very lately set up in a very grand style, but the population of the town will scarcely support him. The company at the _table d'hote_ usually consists of officers, of whom there is always a multitude in the neighbourhood of Amiens. Some of them, as I was informed, are very pleasant agreeable men; whilst others are ruffians, and have the manners of jacobins. CHAP. VIII. _French and English Roads compared--Gaiety of French Labourers--Breteuil--Apple-trees in the midst of Corn-fields--Beautiful Scenery--Cheap Price of Land in France--Clermont--Bad Management of the French Farmers--Chantilly--Arrival at Paris._ I left Amiens early on the following morning, intending to reach Clermont in good time. The roads now became very indifferent, but the scenery was much improved. I could not but compare the prospect of a French road with one of the great roads of England. It is impossible to travel a mile on an English road without meeting or overtaking every species of vehicle. The imagination of a traveller, if as susceptible as a traveller's imagination should be, has thus a constant food for its exercise; it accompanies these several groups to their home or destination, and calls before its view the busy market, the quiet village, the blazing hearth, the returning husband, and the welcoming wife. No man is fit for a traveller who cannot while away his time in such creations of his fancy. I pity the traveller from my heart, who in a barren or uniform road, has no other occupation but to count the mile-stones, and find every mile as long as the three preceding. Let such men become drivers to stage-coaches, but let them not degrade the name of travellers by assuming it to themselves.