I suppose it would be impolitic to say how many sheds there were, or how many aeroplanes we used to see squatting like great winged beetles on the ground, and then rising so lightly, so delicately, spiralling higher and higher, and then darting away with swift wing far into the shimmering blue.
Although Behonne is at the top of a hill, it has managed to tuck itself into a hollow—so many French villages have this burrowing tendency—and all you can see of it as you approach is the top of the church spire rising like a funny candle-extinguisher above the ridge of the hill. The village itself is dull and uninteresting, but the surrounding country beautiful beyond measure, especially when the corn is ripening in the sun; the refugees for the most part not necessitous, having driven from home in their farm carts, magnificently throned on feather beds and duvets, with other household goods.
Two houses, however, made a lasting impression. In one, in a room in the centre of which was a well (boarded over of course), lived a woman, her two children, and an old man in no way related to them. The walls were rotting, in many places straw had been stuffed in to fill fissures and holes, the ceiling was broken, enterprising chunks of it making occasional excursions to the floor below, and one window was "glazed" with paper. The doors, through which rats gnawed an occasional way, were ill-fitting; in bad weather the place was a funnel through which the wind whistled and tore. The woman had one blanket and some old clothes with which to cover herself and her children at night, the old man had a strip of carpet given him by the Curé, a kindly old man of peasant stock and very narrow means. The room was exceedingly dirty, the children looked neglected, the woman was ill.
In the other house was a cheery individual whose husband had been a cripple since childhood. She told us she had four children, the youngest being three years old. He came running in from the street, a great fat lusty thing, demanding to be fed, and we learned to our astonishment that he was not yet weaned. Eugenically interesting, this habit of nursing children up to the age of two or even three years of age is not uncommon, and it throws a strong light upon the psychology of French Motherhood.
A few miles beyond Behonne lies Vavincourt, sacred to the omelette of immortal memory—but oh, what a day it was that saw us there! A fierce wind that seemed to tear all the clothes from our bodies blew from the north, there were some inches of snow on the ground, light powdery snow fell incessantly. We were frozen as we drove out, we froze still harder as we made our way from house to house, slipping and sliding on the treacherous snow, absorbing moisture through our boots, staggering like wooden-legged icicles into rooms whose temperature sensibly declined with our advent. A day of supreme physical discomfort; a day that would surely have been our last had not the Mayor's wife overtaken us in the street and swept us into her kitchen, there to revive like flies in sunshine, under the mellifluous influence of hot coffee and omelette, confitures and cheese.
It was in Vavincourt that we first saw women embroidering silk gowns for the Paris shops. The panels in pale pink were stretched on a frame (métier), at which they worked one on either side; a common method, as we discovered during the winter. In Bar-le-Duc we had come upon a few women who worked without a métier, but as time went on more and more brodeuses of every description came upon our books, and so an industry was started which lived at first more or less by taking in its own washing, but later blossomed out into more ambitious ways. Orders came to us from England, and a consignment of dainty things was sent to America, but with what result I cannot say, as I left Bar before its fate was decided.
The Verdun and Nancy districts appear to be the chief centres of the broderie industry, the latter being so famous that girls are sent there to be apprenticed to the trade, which, however, is wretchedly paid, the rate being four sous, or rather less than twopence, an hour, the women finding their own cotton. We gave six sous and cotton free—gilded luxury in the workers' eyes, though sweating in ours, and trusted to their honesty in the matter of time, a trust which was amply repaid, as with one or two exceptions they were scrupulous to a degree. The most amusing delinquent was a voluble lady from Resson who glibly replied, "Oh, at least sixty hours, Mademoiselle," to every question.
"What, sixty hours to do THAT?" we would remonstrate, looking at a small tray-cloth with a motif in each corner.
"Well, à peu près, one does not count exactly; but it was long, long, vous savez." A steely eye searched ours, read incredulity, wavered; "Six francs fifty? Eh, mon Dieu, on acceptera bien cela." And off she would go, to come back in faith with the same outrageous story on the next market day. Perhaps there is excuse for a debt of six francs swelling to eighteen when one walks ten miles to collect it.
Quite a hundred women inscribed their names on our broderie wages-sheet, the war having dislocated their connection with their old markets. The trade itself was languishing, the workers scattered and unable to get into touch with former employers, for Paris shops do not deal direct as a rule, they work through entrepreneuses, or middlewomen, who now being themselves refugees were unable to carry on their old trade. It was almost pitiable to see how the women snatched at an opportunity of working, only a very few, and these chiefly métier workers, being still in receipt of orders from Paris. Some whom we found difficulty in employing were only festonneuses, earning at the best miserable pay and doing coarse, rough work, quite unfit for our purpose—buttonholing round the necks and arms of cheap chemises, for instance. Others were belles brodeuses, turning out the most exquisitely dainty things, fairy garments or house-linen of the most beautiful kind.