In the country, all the gentlemen shoot; the game consists of partridges, rabbits, hares, snipe, woodcock, wolves, and wild boars; the hunting of which last is by no means child's play. Few country-gentlemen ride; they all of them drive a little, and are most of them great walkers, thinking nothing of what we would count very long distances, such as fifteen miles and back in a day.
Formerly, country-life in France had a certain charming rural rusticity about it, which admitted of the utmost freedom in matters of dress and housekeeping; but now, Mr Hamerton tells us, the old liberty to do exactly as one pleased is disappearing, and fashion and a superficial veneer of external polish are greatly increasing the cost of living, without improving in any way the minds, manners, or constitutions of the people.
On one most important point, however, the old freedom is still maintained—no Frenchman burdens himself with more servants than are absolutely necessary for the requirements of his household. Mr Hamerton relates a case in point: he had an intimate friend in Paris, who went out into the best society and received at his house the greatest people in Europe, yet this man kept only three servants and had no carriage.
It is in this liberty to spend or not as you choose, in this freedom from the tyranny of custom in the matter of expenditure, that the cheapness of continental life lies. Added to this is the pre-eminently practical tone of the French mind, which is always striving with incessant activity to solve the problem, how to make the best of life. As a means to this end, the French almost invariably get on comfortably with their servants; and French servants, when frankly and familiarly treated, and considered as human beings and not as mere machines, generally make very good servants indeed; and the tenure of service, which with us is not unfrequently a matter of months, often continues unbroken in France until the servant is married or dies.
Such is life in the country. Life in a small French city is very different in many respects. It is full of a lazy, purposeless enjoyment, which is always ready with some trifling amusement to fill up every vacant moment in the too abundant leisure of men, who are either independent in fortune, or have professions yielding them an easy maintenance without engrossing much of their time. To such individuals the cafés and clubs of a small town, with their good eating and drinking and sociable small-talk, form a realisation of contented felicity beyond which they do not care to aspire, although it stifles all that is noblest in their nature, and too often lays the foundation of what we would call drinking habits.
The peasantry in France form a class, a world by themselves, full of prejudices, devoid of culture, and very independent in their tone of feeling. The French peasant is inconceivably ignorant, and yet very intelligent; his manners are good, and he can talk well; but he can neither read nor write, and his knowledge of geography is so small, that he cannot comprehend what France is, much less any foreign state. Freed from the grinding oppressions of the past, he is still under bondage to the iron slavery of custom. Every other Frenchman may dress as he chooses, but the peasant must always wear a blue blouse, a brownish-gray cloak, and a hat of a peculiar shape. Custom also prescribes to him the furniture of his house; he must have a linen press, a clock and a bed, and these must be all of walnut wood. Cookery, which is the national talent par excellence, does not exist for him. In the morning he has soup, cheaply compounded of hot water, in which float a few scraps of rusty bacon, a handful or two of peas, and a few potatoes; and if there is not enough of soup to satisfy his hunger, he finishes his meal with dry bread and cold water ad libitum. At noon he dines on potatoes, followed (as an occasional variety in his perennial diet) either with a pancake, a salad, or clotted milk. He never tastes wine or meat except during hay-making and harvest, when he has a little bit of salt pork, and a modest allowance of wine with a liberal admixture of water. Among the peasantry, many of the old superstitions are still prevalent.
Between husband and wife there is little love, but there is also little wrangling or disputing, and they are mutually true and helpful each to each. The children grow up in this cold home, under a rigid patriarchal discipline, in which personal chastisement plays an important part, and is continued even to mature age. In peasant as in town life, however, the tendency is towards change; the children now are in course of being educated; and the young men, although frugal still, are not so parsimonious as their fathers were. They smoke, heedless of the expense, a piece of extravagance which their stoic ancestors would have most sternly denounced; and in the train of tobacco the common comforts of life are slowly finding their way into the houses of the more wealthy peasants.
No subject is more interesting to the English observer in France than marriage, a subject, however, which has already been adverted to in these columns.[3] We conclude this notice of Mr Hamerton's interesting work by relating how he remained in the country during the Franco-Prussian war, and how he shared to the full the anxiety of his French neighbours, for he was constantly expecting that the district around his house would be included in the circle of the invasion, as eventually it was. First came Garibaldi and his army, a very unwelcome sight to the bishop and clergy, to whom the Italian hero seemed the very impersonation of evil. Then came the Prussians quite suddenly and unexpectedly; and naturally Mr Hamerton has very lively recollections of that day, which he spent in a garret of his house, surrounded by a bevy of ladies, reconnoitring the enemy through a very excellent telescope. Throughout the day he remained on the outlook, and when evening fell he went out into the birchwood above his house to bury a certain precious strong-box. When he had concealed his treasure, he returned home in the twilight, watching in the distance, as he descended from the wood, the red flashes of flame leaping from the cannon's mouths, and illuminating with their dusky glow all the surrounding scenery, and then—what does the reader think he did? Take refuge in immediate flight? He did no such thing; he went to bed, and had a comfortable night's sleep. The Prussians were still at the distance of a few miles, and there the armistice stopped them; peace soon followed; and the pleasant little house, which the Englishman had beautified and made comfortable and home-like, escaped the devastation which its occupation by a detachment of Uhlans would in all probability have entailed.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Round my House; Notes on Rural Life in France. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. London, Seeley.