The great want of wood on the hills in whose neighbourhood we now found
ourselves, attracted attention in the time of Louis XIV., and that
sovereign passed severe laws for the protection of the forests that
still remained. As usual, the mere severity of the laws made them fail
of their object. Banishment and the galleys were the punishment for
unauthorised cutting of forest trees, and death if fire were used. There
is a paper in the _Journal de Physique_ of 1789,[96] on the
disappearance of the forests of Dauphine, pointing out that when the
woods are removed from the sides of mountains, the soil soon follows,
and the district becomes utterly valueless. The writer traced the
mischief to the emancipation of serfs, and the consequent formation of
_communes_, where each man could do that which was right in his own
eyes.
At any rate, whatever the reason, nothing can be conceived more bare
than the dun-coloured rounded hills between the town of Die and the Col
de Vassieux, towards which we were making our way. The whole face of the
country had the same parched look, and the soil seemed to be composed
entirely of small stones, without any signs of moisture even in the
watercourses.
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