"Madeleine!" She calls her daughter. Madeleine is a comely girl who has been at work in the next room. She shakes hands as though she had known us as boys, and fills up the glasses again before we go out, and takes one herself with the grace of a lady. For high-bred ease and graciousness of manner, in fact, you are to go to the demoiselles of the provinces. "A votre santé, m'sieur." She raises her glass and smiles—as well as enunciates—the toast. "A votre santé, mademoiselle!" "A la paix, madame!" "Bonne santé!"—"Oui, à la paix, messieurs!—nécessaire, la paix!" ...
Madeleine leads the way into the garden. It is clear at once to what degree the French are addicted to salads: canals of water-cress, fields of lettuce and radish and celery. Most of the plants in that garden are potentially plants for a salad. But there are some fine beds of asparagus, and of these le père is proud. He is obviously pleased to meet anyone who is interested by his handiwork. It's politic even to feign an exaggerated interest in every plot; you are rewarded by the old man's enthusiastic pride: "Ah, messieurs, le printemps s'est éveillé! Bon pour le jardin!" We finish by the rivers of water where the cress grows. "Regardez la source," says Madeleine. She points to it oozing from the hill-side. They have diverted it and irrigated a dozen canals each thirty yards long and two wide. There is more cress there than the whole village could make into salads, you say. But three housewives come with their bags, buying, and each takes such a generous load of the cresson that you know the old man has not misjudged his cultivation.
"Voulez-vous une botte de cresson, messieurs?"—"Oui, s'il vous plait, m'sieur: merci bien!" The old fellow places his little bridge across the canal, cuts a bundle, and binds it from the sheaf of dried grass at his waist. "Voilà, messieurs!"
The purchasers stop far longer than is necessary to talk about the War and the price of sugar and the scarcity of charbon. Conversation is the provincial hobby, as it is the national hobby. Yet I have never seen the French mutually bored by conversation—never. Nor are there, in French conversation, those stodgy gaps which are to be expected in the conversation of the English, and, still more, of the Australians. French conversation flows on; ebbs and flows expresses better not only the knack of apt rejoinder which gives it perfect naturalness, but also the rhythmic rise and fall of it which makes it pleasant to hear, even when you don't understand a word. That, and its perfect harmony of gesture, make it a living thing, with all the interest of a thing that lives.
We (unnecessarily, again) wander about the garden with Madeleine. She gives the history of each plot. What interests us is to her a matter of course: the extraordinary neatness of the garden, the uniformity of plot, the assiduous exclusion of weeds, the careful demarcation of paths, the neatness of the all-surrounding hedge. The French genius for detail and for industry shows itself nowhere so clearly as in a garden. They are gardeners born.
On returning to the house, madame insists that we stay to dinner. We accept without hesitation. Le père comes in and brings the dogs. Soon we know their history from puppyhood. Finu is morose and jealous; she has a litter of pups that make her unfriendly. Koko is a happy chap—always a friend to soldiers, as the old man puts it. He is a souvenir left by a Captain of artillery. All this is, in itself, rather uninteresting, but in the way in which it is put it is absorbing. That, in fact, is the secret of the charm of most French conversation. In the mouth of an Englishman—such is its trifling detail—it would be deadly-boring. The French aptness and vividness of description dresses into beauty the most uninteresting detail.
It soon appears that the whole family are refugees from Arras; have lived here two years. I told them I had recently visited Arras. This flooded me with questions. I wish I had known the detailed geography of Arras better. The narrative of a recent Arras bombardment moved them to tears. They love their town: they love more than their home. This is the spirit of the Republic. The Frenchman's affection for his town is as strong as the Scotchman's for his native heath.
They had brought from Arras all their worldly goods. They took us to the sitting-room and to the bedroom. Much of the furniture was heirlooms. Each piece had its age and history. The carved oak wardrobe was extremely fine; it had belonged to madame's great-grandmother. Chairs, table-covers, pictures—all were treasured. Here was more evidence to expose the fallacy that French family life is decaying. Gentle reader, never believe it. Family history is as sacred in the provinces as natural affection is strong: which is to say much.
But the typical French family heirloom is antique plate. This takes the form of china and porcelain embellished with biological and botanical design. Some of it is very crude and ugly, but dear to the possessor. Every French salle à manger has a wall-full; they are in the place of pictures.
The dinner was elaborate and delicious. No French famille is so poor that it does not dine well: soup, fish with salade, veal with pommes de terre frites, fried macaroni with onions, prunes with custard, coffee and cigars. This—except for the cigars, perhaps—was presumably a normal meal. And between each course Madeleine descended the cave and brought forth a fresh bottle of cidre. And Madeleine's glass was filled by her parent, with a charming absence of discrimination, as often as ours—or as her mother's. The colour mounted in her cheeks; but she did not talk drivel. To generous draughts of wine and cidre had she been accustomed from her youth up. And the youngest French child will always get as much as Madeleine to drink at table. So the French are not drunkards.