7

FRANCE RANCE is the finest country in Europe; perhaps in the world. It abounds in every thing that can render it agreeable. Its air is temperate, but much warmer than in England, particularly in the fouthern part, where, especially about Montpelier, it is so very healthy, that no part of Europe is equal to it. Towards the north it is bounded by the English Channel; weft, by the ocean; fouth, by the Mediterranean sea; and east, by Italy, Switzerland, and Germany.*

It is 600 miles long, 500 broad, contains 160,374 fquare miles, and has about 25,co0,000 inhabitants.-This admeasurement and estimate do not include the acquifitions made by the incorporation of Sardinia, Nice, the territory of Avignon, the late Auftrian Netherlands, and all the country to the left bank of the Rhine, which is now to be the boundary of the French Empire, as it is called, and by which her ftrength is rendered gigantic, her territory including as it were in one grafpris departiments, (inftead of 83, as regulated by the National Convention) with a population amounting to at least $35,000,000 of inhabitants.

France was formerly divided into twelve governments, or provinces, which are,

These twelve provinces are thus laid down upon your map (fee page 52), but in the, modern maps, France is fubdivided into departments, the names of which, as well as the old names answering to them, I fhall put down, as ufeful for reference,

Pyrenees-Orientales Perpignan. Haute-Garonne - Toulouse.