"Good dame, what means that new-made bed,
Those sheets so finely spun?
On heaped-up straw in cattle-shed,
I'd snore till rise of sun."
The compensations for apparent hardship in the case of French peasants are many and great. In Henry James's great series of dissolving views called The American Scene, he describes the heterogeneous masses as having "a promoted look". The French proletariat have not a promoted look, rather one of inherited, traditional stability and self-respect. One and all, moreover, are promoting themselves, rising by a slow evolutionary process from the condition of wage-earner to that of metayer, tenant, lastly freeholder.
Although the immediate environs of Quissac and Sauve are not remarkable, magnificent prospects are obtained a little farther afield—our drives and walks abounded in interest—and associations! Strange but true it is that we can hardly halt anywhere in France without coming upon historic, literary or artistic memorials. Every town and village is redolent of tradition, hardly a spot but is glorified by genius!
Thus, half-an-hour's drive from our village still stands the château and birthplace of Florian, the Pollux of fabulists, La Fontaine being the Castor, no other stars of similar magnitude shining in their especial arc.
Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian was born here in 1755, just sixty years after the great fabulist's death. Nephew of a marquis, himself nephew-in-law of Voltaire, endowed with native wit and gaiety, the young man was a welcome guest at Fernay, and no wonder! His enchanting fables did not see the light till after Voltaire's death, but we will hope that some of them had delighted his host in recitation. Many of us who loved French in early years have a warm corner in our hearts for "Numa Pompilius", but Florian will live as the second fabulist of France, to my own thinking twin of his forerunner.
How full of wisdom, wit and sparkle are these apologues! Take, for instance, the following, which to the best of my ability I have rendered into our mother tongue—
VANITY (LE PETIT CHIEN).
I
Once on a time and far away,
The elephant stood first in might,
He had by many a forest fray
At last usurped the lion's right.
On peace and reign unquestioned bent,
The ruler in his pride of place,
Forthwith to life-long banishment
Doomed members of the lion race.
II
Dispirited, their best laid low,
The vanquished could but yield to fate,
And turn their backs upon the foe
In silence nursing grief and hate.
A poodle neatly cropped and clipped,
With tasselled tail made leonine,
On hearing of the stern rescript,
Straightway set up a piteous whine.
III
"Alas!" he moaned. "Ah, woe is me!
Where, tyrant, shall I shelter find;
Advancing years what will they be,
My home and comforts left behind?"
A spaniel hastened at the cry,
"Come, mate, what's this to-do about?"
"Oh, oh," the other gulped reply,
"For exile we must all set out!"