It is to be hoped that the hours of labour will soon be shortened in a part of France so advanced in other respects, and meantime artizans here are better off than elsewhere. All round the town you find so-called cités ouvrières, built on the model of those of Mulhouse; little streets of cheerful cottages, each with its bit of flower and vegetable-garden, where at least the workman has something to call a home after his day's labour. These artizan quarters are well or ill-kept, of course, according to the thrift or slovenliness of the tenants; some are charming, but at their worst they are a vast improvement upon the close, ill-ventilated quarters to be found in towns. They are also much cheaper, about £5 a year being charged for both house and garden, whereas, even in a little town like Montbéliard, accommodation is dear and difficult to be had. In fact, without these villages the question of house-room would be as much of a problem here for the workman as among our own rural population; no doubt the heads of firms who have built cheerful and ornamental little rows of English-like cottages for their workpeople were actuated at the same time chiefly by philanthropic motives, but they found it absolutely necessary to take some steps in the matter.
Various efforts are being made to raise the status of the mechanic by means of lectures, reading-rooms, and recreation, but, whilst the hours of labour remain what we find them, little good can be effected. A devoted lady, who has spent her whole life in her native town, has done much for the female part of the manufacturing population by means of free night-schools, free library, chiefly for the young, Sunday afternoon classes for the teaching of cutting-out and needle-work, and recreation combined, gratuitous laundries, and other philanthropic schemes. These efforts of Mademoiselle Rosalie Morel, a lay-woman, have been seconded by those of a Protestant deaconess in another direction, the latter devoting herself to nursing and the teaching of hygiene and sanitary science. In the matter of cleanliness, therefore, these good people are not left in the dark as in benighted Brittany, where dirt is not preached against as it ought to be in the pulpit. Mademoiselle Morel's free laundries, in other words a scheme set on foot for the purpose of teaching the poorest classes what clean linen should be, have doubtless effected much good, and on the whole cleanliness is the rule here, and the public hot and cold baths much frequented by all.
In spite, however, of the animation and bonhomie of this little town, there is a dark side to social life, and in the train of intemperance and unthrift among the manufacturing population, we find squalor and immorality. After several weeks' sojourn in that Utopia of all socialistic dreamers—a land without a beggar!—I found myself here, once more, in the domains of mendicity, though it is not to be found to any great extent. The custom of putting out infants to nurse is, fortunately, unfrequent in these parts, and, as a natural consequence, infant mortality is not above the average. The cités ouvrières are to be thanked for this, and the nearness of the home to the factory enables the baby to be brought to its mother for nourishment, and in our visit to the clock manufactory before spoken of, we saw mothers nursing their infants on the spot. Nearer Paris, you constantly encounter infants three day's old being dispatched with their foster-mother into some country place, there to be brought up by hand, in other words, to die; but here it is not so. We find on a small scale at Montbéliard that contrast between wealth and poverty seen in England, but wholly absent from the rural districts of France. The aristocracy of the place here is composed of the wealthy manufacturing class, and by little and little Parisian luxuries are finding their way into this remote region. Until within quite recent date, for instance, there was no such thing as a stand for hackney carriages here; now it has become the fashion to take drives in fine weather. In our walks and drives in the neighbourhood, we encounter handsome waggonettes and open carriages with a pair of horses, rarely seen in the purely agricultural districts.
In every way, habits of life have become modified by the rapid rise of a commercial aristocracy; and, as a natural consequence, we find much more social distinction than in those parts of France where no such class exists. Yet a stranger, who should study French manners and customs for the first time, would find the principle of equality existing in a degree unknown in England. Can anything be more absurd than the differences of rank that divide the population of our provincial towns? The same thing is seen in the country, where the clergyman holds aloof from the village doctor, the farmer from the shopkeeper, both these from the village schoolmaster, and where, indeed, everybody thinks himself better than his neighbour.
We have, in English provincial towns, schools for the professional classes, schools for the children of farmers, of wholesale shopkeepers, of small retail tradesmen; lastly, schools for the "people," and you no more expect to find a rich man's child attending the latter than a chimney-sweep's son at the Grammar School. In French country towns all this is simplified by the École Communale, at which boys and girls respectively, no matter what their parents' calling or means, receive precisely the same education; after the École Communale, comes the Collége, where a liberal education is afforded to boys, and pupils study for the examination of Bachelier-ès-Lettres et Sciences, but are not prepared as at the Lycées for the "Doctorate-in-Law." There is no other school here for primary instruction of both sexes but the Communal School, Protestant and Catholic, whither all the children, rich and poor, patrician and prolétaire, go as a matter of course. The politeness of the French working-classes may be partly accounted for in the association of all ranks in early life. Convent, or other schools, for young ladies, do not exist at Montbéliard, and those who study for the first and second diploma are generally prepared at Belfort and Besançon, where the examinations are held.
There is also here an École Normale, training school for teachers; also a Protestant training school, noted for its excellence. On the whole, for a town of eight thousand inhabitants, Montbéliard must be considered rich in educational and intellectual resources.
Much of the farming in these parts is tenant-farming on a fair scale, i.e., fifty to two or three hundred acres. In the case of small peasant properties, which, of course, exist also, the land is usually not divided on the death of the father, the eldest son purchasing the shares of his brothers and sisters. More on the subject of agriculture will be said further on, there being nothing particularly striking about the two tenant-farms I visited with friends in the immediate proximity of the town. The first, though not a model farm, is considered a good specimen of farming on a large scale, the size being two hundred and fifty acres, hired at a rental of fifty francs per hectare, or about a pound per acre. The premises are large and handsome, and cleanly, according to a French agricultural standard, and, as usual, with a large heap of manure drying up in the sun. Here we found thirty-five splendid Normandy and other cows, entirely kept for milking, the milk being all sent to Montbéliard, with a small number of bullocks, horses and pigs. The land looks poor, and gives no evidence of scientific farming, though very few improvements are made, new agricultural methods and implements introduced, and thus the resources of the land developed. The farmer's wife and daughters were all hard at work, and the farmer busy with his men in the fields. Close to the farm-house, which we found spacious and comfortable, is the handsome villa of the owner, who has thus an opportunity of seeing for himself how things go. If tenant-farming does not pay in England, it certainly can only do so in France by means of a laboriousness and economy of which we have hardly an idea. Work, indeed, means one thing with us, and quite another with our French neighbour.
It is on market-day that the country folks and their wares are to be seen to the best advantage; and housekeepers supply themselves with butter, fruit, vegetables and haberdashery, all being very cheap; peaches sixpence a pound, melons two or three sous each, and so on in proportion. One fruit may puzzle strangers, it is the red berry of the cultivated service berry tree, and makes excellent preserve. In spite, however, of the low prices of garden and orchard produce, everyone complains that the cost of living has greatly risen even here since the war, and that many provisions are as dear as in Paris. Yet, as far as I can judge, Montbéliard is still a place in which, if you cannot live on nothing a year, you can live on next to nothing, and not uncomfortably either.
And now, before turning "to fresh fields and pastures new," a word must be said about the illustrious name that will ever be linked with Montbéliard. Many a hasty traveller alights at the railway station for the purpose of seeing the noble monument of David d'Angers, and the antiquated humble dwelling bearing the proud inscription:
"Ici naquit George Cuvier."