A Frenchman's residence is surrounded by flower-beds and orchards; his windows are covered by creeping-vines and trellis-work; flower-pots and bird-cages occupy the sills and surround the corridors; everything presents the aspect of elegant taste, comfort, and indolence. The extent of his fields, the amount of his produce, the intelligence and industry of his cultivation, bear an immense disproportion to those of his less ornamental, though more energetic, neighbor. The distinction between the two races is as clear in their personal appearance and bearing, as in the aspect of their plantations. The Frenchman is generally a spruce, dapper little gentleman, brisk, obsequious, and insinuating in manner, and usually betraying minute attention to externals. The American is always plain in dress--evincing no more taste in costume than in horticulture--steady, calm, and never lively in manner: blunt, straightforward, and independent in discourse. The one is amiable and submissive, the other choleric and rebellious. The Frenchman always recognises and bows before superior rank: the American acknowledges no superior, and bows to no man save in courtesy. The former is docile and easily governed: the latter is intractable, beyond control. The Frenchman accommodates himself to circumstances: the American forces circumstances to yield to him. The consequence has been, that while the American has stamped his character upon the whole country, there are not ten places in the valley of the Mississippi, where you would infer, from anything you see, that a Frenchman had ever placed his foot upon the soil. The few localities in which the French character yet lingers, are fast losing the distinction; and a score or two of years will witness a total disappearance of the gentle people and their primitive abodes. Even now--excepting in a few parishes in Louisiana--the relics of the race bear a faded, antiquated look: as if they belonged to a past century, as, indeed, they do, and only lingered now, to witness, for a brief space, the glaring innovations of the nineteenth, and then, lamenting the follies of modern civilization, to take their departure for ever! Let them depart in peace! For they were a gentle and pacific race, and in their day did many kindly things! "The goodness of the heart is shown in deeds Of peacefulness and kindness." Their best monument is an affectionate recollection of their simplicity: their highest wish ----"To sleep in humble life, Beneath the storm ambition blows." FOOTNOTES: [70] _History of the United States_, vol. iii., p. 336. Enacted in Massachusetts. [71] A detailed and somewhat tedious account of these savage inroads, may be found in Warburton's _Conquest of Canada_, published by Harpers. New-York. 1850. [72] This is the estimate of Bancroft--and, I think, at least, thirty thousand too liberal. If the number were doubled, however, it would not weaken the position in the text.