As a reward for her many sacrifices during the four years of the most cruel war the world has ever known, France regained her two lost provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. In another volume, "Our Little Alsatian Cousin," is told the story of the home life, the work and the play of the little folks who live in these provinces which were long a part of Germany, not because the people wanted it, but because Germany had won the Franco-Prussian war.
Preface
"Our Little French Cousin" is an attempt to tell, in plain, simple language, something of the daily life of a little French girl, living in a Norman village, in one of the most progressive and opulent sections of France.
The old divisions, or ancient provinces, of France each had its special characteristics and manners and customs, which to this day have endured to a remarkable extent.
To American children, no less than to our English cousins, the memories of the great names of history which have come down to us from ancient Norman times are very numerous.
Besides the great Norman William who conquered England, and Richard the Lion-hearted, there are the lesser lights, such as Champlain, La Salle, and Jean Denys,—the discoverer of Newfoundland; and before them was the Northman ancestor of Rollo, Lief, the son of Eric, who was perhaps the real discoverer of America. All these link Normandy with the New World in a manner that is perhaps not at first remembered.
"Our Little French Cousin" lives in Normandy, simply because she must live somewhere, and not because any attempt has been made to specialize or localize the every-day life of Germaine, her parents, and her friends. Indeed, for a little French girl, it may be thought that she had remarkable opportunities for acquaintanceship with the outside world.
But to-day even little French girls live in a progressive world, and what with tourists and automobilists, to say nothing of a reasonably large colony of English-speaking folk who had actually settled near her home, it was but natural that her outlook was somewhat different from what it might have been had she lived a hundred years ago.