Young und Okey - 1915 - Travels in France and Italy during the years 1787,

Travels in France and Italy/29
some streets. It is said to be very populous, and the eye confirms the
intelligence. The cathedral is modern, and pretty well built, but too heavy.
The public college, the seminary, the bishop’s palace, and the house of
the first president of the court of aids are good buildings: the last large
with a most showy entrance. The promenade is finely situated; built on
the highest part of the rampart, and commanding that noble vale, or
rather plain, one of the richest in Europe, which extends on one side to
the sea, and in front to the Pyrenees; whose towering masses, heaped
one upon another in a stupendous manner, and covered with snow, offer
a variety of lights and shades from indented forms and the immensity of
their projections. This prospect, which contains a semicircle of a hundred
miles diameter, has an oceanic vastness, in which the eye loses
itself; an almost boundless scene of cultivation; an animated, but confused
mass of infinitely varied parts— melting gradually into the distant
obscure from which emerges the amazing frame of the Pyrenees, rearing
their silvered heads far above the clouds. At Montauban I met Captain
Plampin, of the royal navy; he was with Major Crew, who has a
house and family here, to which he politely carried us; it is sweetly
situated on the skirts of the town, commanding a fine view; they were so
obliging as to resolve my inquiries upon some points, of which a residence
made them complete judges. Living is reckoned cheap here; a
family was named to us whose income was supposed to be about 1500
louis a year, and who lived as handsomely as in England on £5000. The
comparative dearness and cheapness of different countries is a subject
of considerable importance, but difficult to analyse. As I conceive the
English to have made far greater advances in the useful arts and in
manufactures than the French have done, England ought to be the cheaper
country. What we meet with in France is a cheap mode of living, which
is quite another consideration.—30 miles.
13th. Pass Grisolles, where are well-built cottages without glass,
and some with no other light than the door. Dine at Pompinion, at the
Grand Soleil, an uncommonly good inn, where Captain Plampin, who
accompanied us thus far, took his leave. Here we had a violent storm of
thunder and lightning, with rain much heavier I thought than I had known
in England; but, when we set out for Toulouse, I was immediately convinced
that such a violent shower had never fallen in that kingdom; for
the destruction it had poured on the noble scene of cultivation, which
but a moment before was smiling with exuberance, was terrible to behold.
All now one scene of distress: the finest crops of wheat beaten so