Superstitions among the peasantry are steadily dying out, even in Brittany. The rising tide of knowledge is finding its way into every creek and inlet, and is steadily submerging beliefs in supernatural influences. At one time the rustics lived in the greatest fear of a rain-producing demon who was called the Aversier, but the science of meteorology has reduced his personality to a condition as nebulous as the clouds that heralded his approach.
Until quite recent times a very large proportion of the medical work in rural districts was carried out by the nuns of the numerous convents, and the preference for the free services of the kindly Sisters, however limited their knowledge, to those of the fully qualified doctor of the locality is easily explained. The rural practitioner's usual fee has only lately been raised from two francs to three, but on driving any distance an additional charge of one franc for every kilomètre is made. The fee of the town doctor, if he is a general practitioner with a good practice, is from five to ten francs a visit. If he belongs to the type of second-class specialist not common in England but numerous in the cities of France, his fee is from ten to twenty francs a visit. The first-class specialist charges fifty francs, and sometimes seventy-five francs, for a visit. In the country the medical man is often content with a bicycle as the means of reaching his patients, for his income is not very often above £500 a year. No doubt the suppression of the monastic orders in France has improved the position of the doctors, who found few patients in certain parts of the country, especially the north-west, where the fervour of religious belief inclined the rustic to put the most complete faith in the prescriptions of the nuns. No doubt their ample experience in the treatment of small ailments (which the average practitioner so often finds tiresome) gave the Sisters considerable success in their medical work. Women doctors in every country could enormously supplement the work of the men, and perhaps the day will come when the general practitioner has a lady assistant to look after the minor ailments which so often become serious through lack of sufficient attention. How relieved would numbers of men doctors be if they could turn over to a lady assistant the visiting of all cases of chronic colds, dyspepsia, and the like!
Whole books have been devoted to the château life of France, and it would be easy to overstep the limits of this chapter in writing on this interesting subject. The wayfarer in France who knows nothing, or next to nothing, of the interiors of the large houses he sees scattered over the country would probably say that they all looked as though shut up and for sale. He sees in his mind the weed-grown main avenue and the ill-kept pathways. Visions come to him of lawns that have grown into hay-fields, of formal gardens converted into vegetable gardens, of terrace balustrades falling into decay, of walls whose plaster has fallen away in patches like those of a Venetian palazzo, of closed shutters, and a look of splendours that have passed. Those who have seen a little more than the mere outsides of the great houses will tell of occupants whose incomes have shrunk to such small sums that they are reduced to living in a few rooms of their ancestral homes, with insufficient servants to do more than keep the place habitable, and to maintain the output of the kitchen garden and a few flowers for the house. That there are many such châteaux is perfectly true. The occupants are mainly anti-Republican in their views. They belong to other days, and are too proud to enter any profession which would bring them into jarring contact with the big majority who are without Royalist leanings. This obliges them to live in threadbare simplicity on the small income their shrunken fortunes provide. Two or three old servants, a few dogs, a horse or two, and a few other luxuries surround them. Formal visits at long intervals are paid to neighbours, who often live at some distance. The curé and perchance the doctor are intimate visitors; there may be a few relations who come for visits, but this is often the whole of the social intercourse of M. and Mme. X., who reside in a portion of a château of the time of Louis XV. which stands surrounded by a large tract of woodland. But ample incomes, and here and there great wealth, maintain many of the great houses of the countryside with modern luxury in every department. Changes have come in the châteaux in recent years which have made breaches in the wall of old-fashioned formality that was so universal until quite lately. Instead of sweet wine and little hard sponge fingers, tea and brioches appear at le five o'clock, as it is often called. Where the old-fashioned ideas of faithful servants will allow it, and the masters and mistresses have felt the influences that flow from Paris, changes in furnishing appear in the abandonment of the bareness and austerity of the reception-rooms. Where such influences have not penetrated, one may be quite sure to find all the furniture in the rooms ranged against the walls, and a complete absence of flowers, books, or the smaller odds and ends of convenience or ornament common to most Anglo-Saxon homes. There may be fine tapestries, numerous family portraits and other pictures, elaborate pieces of Boule and ormolu furniture, ornate clocks, and many other beautiful objects, but restraint and constraint are the prevalent notes. Bare polished floors and staircases with only small mats or rugs here and there remain characteristic of the château interior. Too often there is no more individuality in a house than would exist were it thrown open to the public as a show-place or museum.
In many of the châteaux of the wealthy the charm of what is essentially French is linked with modifications in the directions of Anglo-Saxon convenience and comfort, producing much the same result as is found in those English homes wherein an affection for a Louis XV. atmosphere has introduced the tall silken or tapestried panels and the stilted and elaborate furniture of the eighteenth century.
Surrounded by extensive forests containing wonderful green perspectives, the château is often quite cut off from the sights and sounds of the outer world. When the time of the chasse comes round, the woods may perhaps be enlivened by visions of the chasseurs in pink or green coats, three-cornered hats, and tall boots, and the sound of their big circular horns may be heard. The silence is more effectually broken when shooting parties meet and the battue takes place.
THE CATHEDRAL AND PART OF THE OLD CITY OF CHARTRES.
Motor-cars have made neighbours more accessible, and changes are taking place on this account. In pre-motor days the mistress of a château was often quite unprepared for visitors. Madame Waddington, the American wife of a senator, who has put some of her experiences of social intercourse in the country into a charming volume,[11] describes a visit paid to a château that was half manor, half farm.