the work. Our impression is that the average French peasant is a much higher type of the human animal than the English labourer on the one hand, in France we meet with actual savage varieties in some of the provinces, as, for example, the wild shepherds clad in sheepskins, whom we noticed among the Causses, or the half-Iberian mountaineers of the Pyrenees, which have no counterpart in England; but, on the other hand, there is rarely seen in France the sodden, unintelligent examples of humanity which are sometimes found in our agricultural villages.

Το

The vigour of the peasant class is making itself felt in the national life of France, and is already beginning to push aside the less aggressive bourgeois in careers which the middle-class has considered its own since the period when the aristocracy and its wealthy imitators committed the folly of withdrawing from all the professions except that of the army. A young farm labourer, for example, makes his mark at a primary school. He obtains a bourse at a lycée where his assiduity and lack of urban veneer excite the scorn of his bourgeois class-mates. this he is indifferent; his want of knowledge of the joys of towns gives him more uninterrupted time for application to his studies. He loses not a moment, and passes from the lycée into a government school, whence he comes forth invested with a sword or a diploma. Here, with his career commenced, he is a formidable competitor for his colleagues of more favoured birth. He applies to his labours, for which he has an insatiable appetite, all the vigorous freshness of a temperament untouched by the influences which has produced in towns a nervous, irritable, sceptical generation. There is, of course, another side to this picture, and the ease with which the wearers of the blue blouse, whether peasant or mechanic, are enabled to assume the broadcloth of the bourgeoisie is beginning to be regarded as a national danger by observers who are neither reactionary nor alarmist. The increasing number of the youth of France, who have acquired just enough education to make them despise manual labour, without the necessary complement of commanding ability or industrious determination, is not a source of strength to the nation.

Vigour and health are the chief impressions which a sojourr. in the French provinces leaves upon the observer, both in the people and in the soil. As one travels through France what variety of landscape meets the eye day after day and week after week, though strangers who make a rapid transit through the country often complain of the monotony of the scene. The vast horizons of the plains unbroken by acclivity or hedge

row;

row; the waving fields of corn which stretch to such boundless distance that they remind one of the forests of Canada when golden in the autumn; the hillsides covered with vineyards; the royal forests pierced with paths affording endless vistas of verdure; the orchards laden with fruit; the rugged slopes of the mountains where the unpromising soil is subdued to fertility by indefatigable labour. Then there are the larger villages clustered round the tower of an ancient church, with irregular ill-paved streets impregnated with a rustic odour; the little towns, half asleep beneath the shadow of historic walls, which revive memories of the romantic age of France; Chinon, Blois, and Fontainebleau, once the residence of kings; Vendôme, Loches, Gisors, and Amboise, ancient capitals, and once strong places which sustained warlike seiges, whereon depended the destinies of France. At this place the heroic maid of Orleans halted on her patriotic progress through the land; a few leagues hence the associations of the grey towers, now grim with age, are with the gentler tradition of Agnes Sorel or of Diane de Poitiers. Again there is the varying aspect of the different classes of the people; the laborious, sturdy peasant, frugally self-denying in order that he may own a scrap of the earth's surface; the more active and nervous mechanic; the industrious trader. Each class and calling has, to some extent, retained its distinctive garb with the conservatism which is the foundation of the French national character; each province displays its peculiarities of race and of language. Party feeling often runs high in secluded regions: here, the Church is all powerful; there, is found a Protestant remnant-descendants of the combatants in religious wars; on one side of a river men's hopes run high that a monarch will one day rule over France again; beyond the stream survives some of the spirit which sacked the chateaux and the convents a hundred years ago. Yet, amid all this variety of race and of occupation, of sentiment and of class, there are two characteristics which throughout France are universal-every one works, and every one is imbued with an intense love of country. The industry and the patriotism of France more than counterbalance all her national defects, and, in spite of her misfortunes, guard her in the front rank of nations.

We

There are many features in the life of provincial France which, with deep regret, we refrain from touching upon, some of which are suggested by the volumes before us. should have liked to enter at some length on the subject of peasant proprietary, and of the French farming system generally, a topic which is often referred to in England, and

usually

usually with considerable misapprehension. Many English writers upon French economics seem to imagine that the whole agricultural area in France is cut up into small portions, whereas large landowners are found in almost every department. In the Nièvre, for instance, although the greater number of proprietors are small owners, the greater portion of the district is in the hands of large proprietors. This is an example of the extreme difficulty of making any general statements which are correct regarding France, apart from her administrative institutions. The metayage system, too, is deserving of careful examination, and it will be surprising to many English readers to know that there are parts of rural France, which they may pass through by railway half a day's journey from Paris, where the corvée is still in operation. We should have liked also to consider the position of the clergy in the provinces. Although the Church has unhappily lost a large proportion of the intellectual and vigorous manhood of France, yet the vast majority of the nation continues to enter upon life baptized in the ancient faith, and to pass from it at its close fortified by the sacraments. Perhaps, on a future occasion, we may be permitted to review the present condition and the future prospects of the Catholic Church in France, but in the meanwhile we would say that the truth of the matter is to be found neither in the heated polemics of pamphleteers, who hold a brief for the extreme clerical faction which longs for the day when the civil power shall make absolute submission to the Church, nor in the repressive policy of the secular party which, not content with curbing the pretensions of arrogant ecclesiastics, would do away with the religious faith of the mothers of France after having first outraged it.

Every writer, empirical or experienced, who describes French life, has a remedy to offer, sometimes indeed for ills which do not exist. Our excellent but insular Britons, who have pleasantly described their home in the Aveyron, seem to think that there must be something radically wrong in a country where man can go forth to work in the morning without having exercised his carnivorous appetite at an early breakfast. The American democratic editor professes that all would be well with France if the detestable institution called a republic could give place to a monarchy of ultramontane tendencies; while the accomplished English maiden-lady, who describes the 'Roof of France,' joins direct issue with him, gallantly and gaily proposing that for the salvation of France the clergy should renounce their celibacy. France is as likely to accept one of these prescriptions as the other. What she really requires has

been

been discovered by the author of 'Round my House,' who in his recent work sagaciously observes that the chief desire at present in France is rest; that there is a weariness of change after the most disturbed century of national existence, and that the single wish of the people is to pursue their avocations in peace. It sounds like a paradox, but is none the less true, that the chief barrier to a monarchical restoration in France is the growing conservatism which has always, amid all ebullitions of excited feeling, been inherent in the French character. The people know that a change in the form of government could only be brought about by a revolution or as the result of a war, and they shrink from the contemplation of either eventuality, preferring to accept the present condition of things though it rouses no enthusiasm. It must always be remembered that the French, though a nation of soldiers, are far from being a bellicose people, and the fact, that universal conscription makes liable for warlike service every husband, son, and brother, in the land is a guarantee against rash enterprise. Although, on the one hand, the genuine royalist sentiment is almost extinct, the republican sentiment, on the other hand, has become cool. The younger generation is republican in the sense of disbelieving in the possibility of a monarchical restoration, but the ardent republicanism of the old doctrinaires is almost as dead as the advocacy of the divine right of kings. In the present state of Europe it is impossible to make a forecast of even a few years ahead; but it seems likely that the present form of government will continue in France, until disturbed by a European commotion which shall gravely affect the French nation.

We feel that our observations upon Provincial France are imperfect and cursory, but we shall be content in the thought that perhaps they may be the means of attracting some of our countrymen in their days of leisure to a personal study of a great people who, though our nearest neighbours, know us as imperfectly as we know them. To study a tract of France, to become acquainted with its natural features, the way of life of its people, and its historical associations, is a holiday occupation as easy of accomplishment as it is interesting; but if life be too short for a space of it to be devoted to a minute examination of a portion of this sunny land, then we would counsel travellers to take some simple series of historical events as a guide for their more extended journeyings. For example, no better general idea of Provincial France could be obtained in a brief tour than by visiting all the chief places associated with the brief story of Joan of Arc. The towns and villages must of course

be

be taken in geographical order, and not in the chronological sequence of the rapid events in the crowded life of La Pucelle. The traveller may, however, start at her birthplace at Domremy almost beneath the shadow of the Vosges. Thence making his way westward he would halt at Reims where the Maid brought Charles VII. to be crowned, at Compiègne where she was imprisoned, at Rouen where she laid down her life; then turning to the south he would come to Orleans, the city which delivered by her had the honour of giving to her its name, passing on his way Patay, where Joan took prisoner the invincible Talbot, defeating the English on an 18th of June, four centuries before Waterloo; thence to Chinon, where rise the crumbling walls of the vast castle whither came the Maid to seek the crownless King, and so to Poitiers. Here the journey may well end, for if the chief cities on the road between Lorraine and Poitou have been visited, if their monuments have been examined and their traditions noted, the traveller will take home with him a living knowledge of the history of France, and a vivid reminiscence of the scenes in which it has been made, such as years of literary study might not afford, and moreover will gain an insight into the life of the people which will help to a better understanding of the problems which have to be solved by France of to-day.

Whether Paris be the heart of France, or the head of France, has never been decided to the satisfaction of disputants who do battle about words; but, in the meanwhile, it is true that the soul and body of France, which suffers for the errors of its rulers and afterwards compensates for them with wealth, and enterprise, and bravery, to the admiration of the world, are found remote from the capital in the workshops and the homes of provincial towns, and among the vineyards and the cornfields of the pleasant land.

ART.