EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS
Foreign tourists had little occasion to traverse the extreme west of France, — Brittany and La Vendée, — but there, too, the condition of the roads was extremely primitive. John Can- in going back to England from his tour in France passed through Caen in Normandy. "After we left Caen," says he, "the roads became very bad. Our ponderous machine [diligence] frequently rolled from one side to the other, and with many alarming crackings, threatened us with a heavy and perilous overthrow."[1]
Many highways, especially in the remoter provinces, were without question sadly out of repair. But notwithstanding bad roads, such as one too often finds in America to-day, the quality of the French roads in general was excellent. The chief alleged defect was the heavy pavement,[2] which ill-adapted them for the passage of light carriages.[3] The anonymous author of "A View of Paris" (1701), though fond of satirical comment, says nevertheless of the road from Paris to Versailles that it "is pav'd exceeding even, as indeed are most roads in France."[4] Lady Mary Montagu was not given to overpraise, but in 1739 she writes: "France is so much improved, it would not be known to be the same country we passed through, twenty years ago … the roads are all mended, and the greater part of them paved as well as the streets of Paris, planted on both sides like the roads in Holland; and such good care taken against robbers, that you may cross the country with your purse in your hand."[5]
The road between Calais and Saint-Omer, says Jones,[6] "seems equal to any of the best turnpike roads we have in England," being about forty feet wide and planted with willows, poplars, and elms. So good was the road between Mons and Paris that the masters of the diligences assured their patrons that on the third day after leaving Brussels one could dine at Paris.[7] And Dr. Rigby says, in 1789: "We were told to expect nothing but rough paved roads. They are paved in some places, but in others as good as English roads."[8]
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- ↑ Carr, The Stranger in France, p. 269.
- ↑ "The way from Paris to this city [Orléans], as indeed most of the roads in France, is paved with a small square-face stone, so that the country does not much molest the traveller with dirt and ill-way, as in England, only 't is somewhat hard to the poor horses' feet, which causes them to ride more temperately, seldom going out of the trot, or grand pas, as they call it." Evelyn, Diary (1644), i, 71.
- ↑ The Gentleman's Guide, p. 4.
- ↑ Page 56.
- ↑ Letters, ii, 52, 53.
- ↑ Journey to Paris (1776), i, 34, 35.
- ↑ Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 238.
- ↑ Letters, p. 9.
