Métayage, or the system of sharing results between the landowner and the labouring peasant, still flourishes in France, notwithstanding the severe denunciations passed upon it by various writers. If it were a very bad system, it would have fallen into disuse long before now, for although the French have a tendency to keep their wheels in old ruts, they are as keen as any other people in protecting their own interests. It is a system that would soon become impossible without trustfulness and honesty. On both sides there must be fair dealing. The colon must feel that the landlord will help him in time of trial and need, and the landlord must feel that the colon is not trying to cheat him. In the great majority of cases, the man who does the ploughing, the sowing and the harvesting quite realizes that honesty with him is the best policy, and the owner of the soil knows that it is to his interest to support his métayer, and encourage him with judicious aid when the times are bad. The métayer, who has hope of making a little money over and above what is barely sufficient to support himself and his family, and knows that results will depend largely upon his own sagacity and industry, works with a steady zeal that it would be unreasonable to expect of the hired labourer, who, having his measured wage always in his mind's eye, has no incentive to do more than what is rigorously expected of him.
It may happen that the métayer, with all his labour—carried sometimes to an extreme that degrades the man physically and mentally—and all his frugality, which so often entails constitutional enfeeblement and degeneration, because the nutrition is not sufficient to correct the exhaustion of toil, obtains really less value for his work than an English farm labourer, and is not so well housed; but, on the other hand, he enjoys a large amount of liberty and independence, and has the hope, if he is young, of being able to save money, buy some land, and become his own master. A métairie is seldom so large as to be beyond the working capabilities of a man and his family. In Guyenne an estate of a few hundred acres, if the land is productive, is often divided up into several métairies.
Farm labourers are not an overfed or overpaid class in Périgord. Food that is almost bread and vegetables, and a wage of one franc a day, are the ordinary conditions on which men work from sunrise to darkness. Lodging is not always included. I have known men in the full vigour of life earning only the equivalent of ninepence halfpenny a day, paying rent out of it, and presumably supporting a wife and children.
The daily life at the château was quite old fashioned in its simplicity. Everybody rose with the sun, or very soon afterwards. At nine o'clock the bell in the court rang for the principal meal, which was called dinner. Kings dined at about the same hour in the times of the Crusaders. Early in the afternoon the bell rang again. This was for collation, a very light repast, which was often nothing more than salad or fruit and a frotte—a piece of crusty bread rubbed with garlic. At about seven o'clock the bell rang for supper.
The small châteaux with which the whole country hereabouts is strewn, notwithstanding that most of them have been partially rebuilt or grossly and wantonly mangled without a purpose such as the rational desire of increasing homely comfort may excuse, even when combined with no respect for the past, nevertheless contain numerous details that call up in the mind pictures of the life of old France. In the rat-haunted lofts and lumber-rooms may still be seen, worm-eaten and covered with dust, the cacolet—a wooden structure shaped like the gable roof of a house, and which, when set upon a horse's back, afforded sitting accommodation for two or three persons on each side. There are people who can still remember, on the roads of Périgord, the cacolets carrying merry parties to marriage feasts and other gatherings. In a few of the great dining-rooms the visitor will still notice the alcôve volante—a bedstead, that is a little house in itself, put into a cosy quiet nook where a person can get into bed without being observed by others in the room. A pretty sentiment caused it to be especially reserved for the grandmothers, who, stretched upon the warm feathers on the winter evenings, could rest their weary limbs while listening to the talk of their descendants and friends, until drowsiness began to make confusion of the present and the past, and then they would pull the cords which closed the curtains and go to sleep. Poor old ladies, now in their graves under the paving-stones of little churches or beneath the grass of rural cemeteries, how happy for them that they did not dream of the future in their snug alcôves near the fire—of a revolution that would kill or scatter their descendants, and of the strangers to their blood who would lie in their beds!
The detached dovecot is seen in almost every old manorial garden. Although pigeons are seldom kept in it, the structure has been preserved because of its usefulness for various purposes and the solidity of its masonry. In some of them is to be seen the old spiral ladder or staircase winding like a serpent round the interior wall from the ground to the domed or pointed roof. By means of this ladder the pigeons could be easily taken from their nests as they were wanted. These great dovecots are an interesting remnant of feudalism. Down to the Revolution the right of keeping pigeons was still a droit seigneurial. To those who enjoyed the privilege, the business was therefore a profitable one, for the birds fed largely at other people's expense.
It is rare to find the ancient walls and towers which stud the hills that rise above these valleys in the hands of families who owned them even in the last century. Terror of the Revolutionists caused most of the small nobility of the country to forsake their homes and lands, which were consequently sold by the State révolutionnairement, and they who acquired them were thrifty, sagacious people of the agricultural, mercantile, or official class, whose political principles bent easily before the wind that was blowing, and whose savings enabled them to profit by the misfortunes of those who had so long enjoyed the advantages of a privileged position. The descendants of the men who seized their opportunity, and who purchased the estates of the refugees—often at the price 'of an old song'—generally cultivate anti-Republican politics, for they have the best of reasons to be suspicious of the 'great and glorious principles' by virtue of which property was made to change hands so unceremoniously at the close of the last century.
The present owners of most of the country houses in Périgord, whether they belong to the old families or the new families, whether they put the noble particle before their names or not, have very much the same habits and manners. Not a few of them have never been to Paris, and in speech they often use old French forms, which sound strange in the ears of the modernized society of the North. Although the accent is often drawling or sing-song, their language is more grammatically correct than that now ordinarily used in conversation. They observe the true distinction of the tenses with an exactitude that sounds stiff and pedantic to those French people who move about, and who consider that they live in the 'world.' To the unprejudiced foreigner, however, it is not unpleasant to hear this old-fashioned literary French spoken in an easy, simple manner that removes all suspicion of affectation.
In the relations of master and servant, something of the old régime still survives. The master still says tu and toi to his servant; but if the latter were to take the liberty of replying with the same pronoun, his insolence would be considered quite unpardonable. And yet no people appear to be troubled less with false pride than the class of whom I am speaking. Relatively large landowners, whose names count for a good deal in the district, think there is nothing derogatory in sending a maidservant to market to sell the surplus fruit and eggs. Those who buy are equally practical. They haggle over sous with their friends' servant just as if she were a peasant driving a bargain on her own account. It is the exception, however, when to this keen appreciation of money warm-hearted hospitality and disinterested kindness are not joined.
There was a château combining the country house, the farm, and the ruin on the summit of the steep hill that rose above our little island just beyond the river. It often tempted me to climb to it, and one day at the end of summer I wended my way up the stony path. I met with that courteous reception which so rarely fails in France to place the visitor completely at his ease. I was surprised to find how extensive the ramparts were, and how easily the castle behind the modern house could have been rendered habitable. But all the windows were open to the weather. A Gothic chapel with groined vaulting at the base of one of the towers had been turned into a coach-house. Following an old servant who carried a lantern along a dark passage leading to an oubliette, I saw what looked like a large cattle trough, and inquired the use of it in such a place. It was put to no purpose now, was the reply, but it was intended for keeping a whole bullock in salt. In the tumultuous ages it was always necessary to be prepared to take immediate measures in view of a siege, and at no period more than during the wars of religion, when the owners of these castles, whether they were Huguenots or Catholics, had to be continually on the alert. When there was fighting to be done, a salted bullock gave less trouble than a live one.