Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Article: De la Rochefoucauld- On England 1784

On the weather:
"I have never felt such cold. It lasted for nearly four months, during the whole of which the ground was covered with snow about two feet deep and the frost made it as hard as the ground itself. Many of the evergreen trees were completely frozen and the snow which settled on the branches of the fir trees, of which there are large numbers, caused the trees to split in half. . . .My own experience leads me to conclude that the climate of England is very rainy and that it is both colder and windier than that of France. This, however, is contrary to the opinion of a large number of people who hold that, generally speaking, there is little or no difference between the two."

On being welcomed:
"They invited us to dinner and supper. We used to stay on at after dinner parties with people who treated us as friends, who would speak very slowly so that we might understand them better, would try, sometimes, to mix a French word or two with their English and would take all possible trouble to give us pleasure."

On farmers:
"Their houses are always clean and well kept; their barns are in excellent condition, and they are always careful to keep one small sitting room spotlessly clean and sometimes even elegant." The farmer received us with the greatest courtesy and later we were served with dinner, and we sat to table as calmly as if we had previously had the farmer's acquaintance. Mr. Case's appearance is that of a country-man pure and simple. He has an affable bearing, his manners are polished in the English sense, that is to say without undue formalities, and all the better for that . . . the farm buildings are well supplied with stables, barns and so forth. The barns are full of corn and, in addition, one sees grouped all round the house stacks of peas and barley larger and taller than the house. The farm covers 1,600 acres of land surrounding the house and all linked up together.

Mr. Case employs fourteen servants and twelve labourers the year round, and also eighty team horses, he keeps a thousand sheep and a hundred and fifty pigs, fed principally on peas. The harvest lasts for five weeks, during which he employs sixty-three labourers to whom he gives something between forty-two and forty-five shillings as well as food, which costs a prodigious amount. The harvesters have meat three times a day and strong beer in proportion, as well as all the small beer they desire. They consume so much that Mr. Case told us he is obliged to kill two bullocks a week, and three sheep a day."
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