OF RURAL LIFE IN FRANCE
Peasant ownership of land does not always imply prosperity, and
because such a vast majority of French peasants possess their own few
acres, one must not jump to the conclusion that all these little
farmers live comfortable and prosperous lives. In very large tracts of
what has so often been called "the most fertile country in Europe,"[9]
the peasant is only able to tear from the soil he owns the barest
existence. By unremitting toil he makes his land produce enough to
give him and his family a diet mainly composed of bread and
vegetables. Meat, coffee, and wine come under the heading of luxuries,
and so much that is nutritious is missing from the normal dietary that
it would seem as though the minimum requirements of health were not
met. Long hours of steady toil, and food which the Parisian would
consider insufficient to make life tolerable, is the lot of the
peasant proprietors of France wherever the soil is ungenerous or
distance from railways and markets keeps prices low.
[9] The same claim is frequently made for England.
In the unprofitable soils of the Cevennes, and in certain parts of the
province of Correze, the peasants can cultivate little besides
buckwheat and potatoes. The latter, with chestnuts which are also
produced in these mountainous districts, form the staple food of the
agricultural population, and their drink is water, which they
sometimes enliven with the berries of the juniper. This is the simple
and hard-working life of those whose lot is cast in what may be called
the stony places. Quite different are the conditions of life in
Normandy or the wonderfully fertile plain of La Beauce, where is grown
the greatest part of the wheat produced in France. Here the generous
return for the labour expended on the soil brings such prosperity to
the peasant owner that he often turns his eyes to higher rungs in the
social ladder than that of husbandry, offering his land for sale, and
so giving opportunities for the capitalist to invest in a profitable
industry.
Success may be said to bring with it dangers to which the peasant of
the poorer soils is not subjected. Writing of the farmers of La Beauce
and of parts of Normandy, Mr. Barker says: "Too often are they found
to be high feeders, copious drinkers, keenly, if not sordidly,
acquisitive, unimaginative, and coarse in their ideas and tastes.
Material prosperity, when its effects are not corrected by mental, and
especially by moral, culture, has an almost fatal tendency to develop
habits that are degrading and qualities that repel.... It is to be
noted as a social symptom that among the class of prosperous
agriculturalists in France, the birth-rate is exceptionally low."
Of the 17,000,000 of the population who are more or less dependent
upon agriculture for their livelihood, only about 6,500,000 actually
work on the soil. Those who own holdings of less than twenty-five
acres number nearly 3,000,000, and the total area of land held in this
way is something between 15 and 20 per cent of the whole cultivated
area. About three-quarters of a million persons possess the balance.
The sizes of the holdings, of course, vary enormously. Besides those
who own their land, there is the large class of _metayers_, who are
part of a complicated system which persists in spite of its
theoretical impossibility of smooth working. Where a landowner is a
_gentilhomme campagnard_, he will in most cases have a few farms
attached to his residence, which is always _le chateau_ to the
peasant, however difficult to discover its old-time manorial
splendours may have become. The farmers who work for the landowner are
not rent-payers: they merely share with him in the results of their
labour, a system of co-operation which results in very close relations
between landlord and farmer. No hard and fast rules are followed as to
the proportion of the crops which falls to the landlord, or what share
he has of the cattle. It is common for him to furnish draught animals
as well as seed and implements. This system is limited very much to
those districts where agriculture has stood still for a very long
period, such as the Limousin, and the total of the land worked on the
_metayage_ system is only 7 per cent of the whole of the cultivated
land.
To this day the methods of husbandry maintained in the less accessible
departments are scarcely ahead of the Romans, and on the slopes of
the Pyrenees one may still see the flail in use for threshing
purposes, while the plough with a wooden share, which seems likely to
hold its own for a long time to come in certain of the mountainous
districts, is the same as those depicted by prehistoric sculptors high
on the rock-faces of Monte Bego on the Franco-Italian frontier.
In the greatest part of France oxen are used for draught purposes, and
these picturesque, cream-coloured beasts, yoked to curious big-wheeled
country carts, are always an added charm to the country road. Whether
they are seen patiently plodding along a white and dusty perspective
of tree-bordered road, or are standing quietly in a farmyard with
lowered heads while the queer tumbril behind them is being loaded,
they have picture-making qualities which the horse lacks.
The carts are wonderfully primitive, two wheels being favoured for
purposes which in England are always considered to require four. In
fact the four-wheeled cart is difficult to discover anywhere in rural
France. Even the giant tuns containing the cider they brew in
Normandy, or those that are filled with wine in the Midi and other
grape-producing districts of the land, are borne on two great wheels,
and a pair of clumsy poles that, when horses are used, are tapered
down to form shafts.
Farms differ in character and attractiveness according to local
conditions in every country, but France shows an astonishing range of
styles. In the north one finds the timber-framed barn and outhouse
delightfully prevalent, and in Normandy the farm often possesses the
character of those to be seen in Kent and Sussex, although south of
the Channel the compact, rectangular arrangement of barns is perhaps
more noticeable than to the north. Between the Seine and the Loire,
the timber-framed structures are very extensively replaced by those of
stone; but although lacking in the interest of detail, their colour is
exceedingly rich, for the thatched roofs are very frequently thick
with velvety moss, and the cream-coloured walls are adorned by patches
of orange and silvery-grey lichen. Wooden windmills are conspicuous on
the shallow undulations of the plain of La Beauce. Where roofs are
tiled, they too have become green with moss, giving a wonderful
mellowness to the groups of buildings. Farther south the farms are
still of stone, and some of them have an atmosphere of romance about
them in their circular towers with high conical roofs, and with even
the added picturesqueness of a turret or two.
South of Poitiers the roofs of nearly all the houses take on the low
pitch and the curved tile which belong to the whole of the southern
zone of the country, and prevent one from noticing any marked
architectural change in crossing the frontiers into Spain or Italy.
Taken as a whole, the villages are without any of the tidy charm to be
found in nearly every part of England. A hamlet gives the road that
passes through it the appearance of a farmyard. Hay, straw, and manure
are allowed to accumulate to such an extent that in the twilight a
stranger might think he had inadvertently left the road and strayed
into a farm. And whereas in England the rural hamlet does not usually
crowd up to the thoroughfare, it is often very much the reverse in
France. The writer has traversed thousands of miles of French roads,
has wandered with a bicycle in the byways, but has not yet seen a
village green with a pond and ducks, or even a churchyard with a
suspicion of that garden-like finish which makes England unique. The
velvety turf that grows on Britain's sheep-cropped commons does not
exist outside that land, and one never even expects to find the French
wayside relieved by such features.
Economy in using every inch of soil, in avoiding the waste of sunshine
on arable lands, and in preventing the waste of timber caused by
letting trees grow untrimmed, has given the French landscape its most
characteristic features. Hedges which the Englishman has learnt to
love from his childhood, first because of the wild life they shelter
and the blackberries and nuts they provide, and later on account of
the beauty they add to every cultivated landscape, are an exceptional
feature in France. In immense areas such a dividing line is never to
be seen, and saving perhaps for a small tree that is scarcely more
than an overgrown bush, there is little to break the horizon line
except the tall poplars, birches, and other trees that line the main
roads. These are not allowed to live idle, ornamental lives: they,
like the toiling peasant, must work for their living by providing as
many branches as possible for the periodical lopping. In this way wood
for the oven and for the kitchen fire is supplied in nearly every
department of the country.
In the fat and prosperous districts of Normandy, where rich grazing
lands produce the butter for which the province is famed, hedges are
as common as in England, and where mop-headed trees are not in sight,
it is not easy to notice any marked difference between the two
countries.
Brittany is the province where the wayside cross is most in evidence,
but in every part of the country these symbols of the Christian faith
are to be found. Outside Brittany it is rare to-day to see any one
taking any notice of them, and no doubt the spread of education and
the consequent shrinking of the superstitions of the peasantry, make
the crucifix less and less a need on dark and misty nights. Offerings
of wild flowers are still tied to the shaft of the wayside cross,
where they rapidly turn brown, and resemble a handful of hay. The
well-head is a feature of the farm and cottage which varies in every
part of the land. It is frequently a picturesque object, having in
many localities a wrought-iron framework for supporting the
pulley-wheel.
[Illustration: A BRETON CALVAIRE. THE ORATORY OF JACQUES CARTIER.]
Horses and mules are seldom to be seen without some touch of colour or
curious detail in their harness. It may be a piece of sheep-skin dyed
blue and fixed to the top of the collar, or that part of the harness
will be of wood, quaintly devised, and studded with brass nails and
other ornament. Red woollen tassels are much in favour in some
districts.
The breeding of horses in great numbers takes place in the north coast
regions of Brittany, Normandy, and between the mouth of the Seine and
the Belgian frontier. Using cattle for draught purposes so very
extensively no doubt keeps down the number of the horses in the
country, but in 1905 the total had risen to considerably over three
millions. Tarbes, a town near the Pyrenees, gives its name to the
Tarbais breed of light cavalry and saddle-horses, and the chief
northern classes are the Percheron, the Boulonnais for heavy draught
work, and the Anglo-Norman for heavy cavalry and light draught
purposes. Cattle, pigs, and asses have been increasing in numbers in
recent years, but sheep and lambs have shown a very decided falling
off, 22-1/2 millions in 1885 having dropped to 17-3/4 in 1905. Sheep
are raised on all the poorer grazing lands of the Alps, the Jura, the
Vosges, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees, and also on the sandy district
of Les Landes on the Bay of Biscay. South-western France in general,
and the plain of Toulouse in particular, produce a fine class of
draught oxen. In the northern districts they are stall-fed on the
waste material of the beet-sugar and oil-works, and of the
distilleries.
It is a popular error to imagine that the State owns all the forests
of France and even the wayside trees. This is due no doubt to the fact
that certain governmental restrictions do apply to the owners of
growing timber. The total of forest land amounts to only 36,700 square
miles, or about 18 per cent of the whole country, and of this about a
third belongs to the State or the communes. Fontainebleau has 66
square miles of forest, but although the best known, it is not by any
means the largest, the Foret d'Orleans having an area of 145 square
miles. Much planting of pines has taken place in Les Landes, and that
marshy district, famed for its shepherds who use stilts for crossing
the wet places and water-courses, has by this means altered its
character very considerably. Reafforestation is taking place on the
slopes of the Pyrenees and the Alps which have been laid bare by the
woodman's axe.
Standing quite apart from the rest of the agriculture of the country
is the wine-grower. His industry requires very specialised knowledge,
and his dangers and difficulties are in some ways greater than those
of the farmer. It may be the terrible insect called the phylloxera
that destroys the growth of the vine, it may be mildew, or it may be
over-production, but any of these troubles bear hardly upon the
vine-grower, who is, broadly speaking, a humble type of peasant with
very little capital. Before the war with Germany these people were a
fairly prosperous and contented class, but since that time formidable
troubles have smitten them very heavily. The awful visitation of the
phylloxera is said to have cost as much as the war indemnity paid to
Germany, _i.e._ L200,000,000, and when it was discovered that certain
American vines were not subjected to the ravages of the pest, and
feverish planting had established the new varieties in the land, a new
trouble, in the form of over-production, presented itself to the
unfortunate growers. More land had been converted into vineyards than
had ever produced such crops in the past, and a large production of
wine in Algeria so lowered prices that in 1907 affairs in the Midi
reached a critical state. Riots occurred at Beziers and Narbonne,
incendiarism and pillage took place at Epernay and Ay, and for a time
the Government found itself confronted with an infuriated mass of
peasants, who blamed it for the disastrously low prices then
prevailing. They also attributed the stagnation in the trade to the
fraudulent methods of sale that had become common. They were not very
far from the truth in stating that they did not reap so much advantage
as those who grew cereals and beetroot, while paying for the
protective policy in the high prices of food and all other
commodities.
The peasant might almost be said to wear a uniform, so universal in
France is the soft black felt hat and the dark-blue cotton smock in
which he appears in the market-place. In this garb one sees a wide
variety of national types, from the English-looking men of Normandy to
the dark-complexioned, black-haired, and lithe race of the south.
Often the latter have an almost wild appearance, terrifying to the
British or American girl who strays any distance from the modern types
of palatial hotel which can now be found in regions of medicinal
springs in the Pyrenees. He is, however, a much less formidable
person when he enters into conversation, and, taken as a whole, the
agriculturalist is a very pleasant-mannered, hospitable, and dignified
person. He possesses in a marked degree the domestic virtues, the
level-headed shrewdness, the patience, thrift, and foresight which
give steadiness to his nation. In small towns in the south he can be a
person of immense sociality. The _place_ during the warmer months of
the year, after the work of the day is done, buzzes with conversation,
the steady hum of which would puzzle a stranger until he saw its
cause. In the strange little walled town of Aigues-Mortes, the entire
male population seems to congregate in the central square, and there
passes the evening at the tables of the three or four cafes. So much
conversation as that indulged in by these peasants of the Rhone delta
would seem sufficient to produce solutions for all the problems of the
wine industry, as well as those of rural populations in general.
[Illustration: A PEASANT CHILD OF NORMANDY.]
Care for the future makes the peasant toil and save for his children.
Husband and wife will keep their children's future in view in a most
self-effacing fashion, and if their shrewdness in business may go
rather beyond the mark, it is in the interests of their family that
they are working. The reward is too often that which comes to the
old--the sense of being a burden to their offspring when rheumatism
and kindred ills have robbed them of further capability for toil.
In the country districts that are out of touch with modern influence,
the peasant keeps his womenkind in a state of subservience that is
almost mediaeval, and the custom of keeping the wife and daughters
standing while the father and sons are at meals is still said to be
maintained in some parts of the country.[10] The peasant is often a
tyrant in his family. In some districts he is in the habit of calling
his sons and daughters "my sons and the creatures." He is sometimes
quite without any interest in politics. The various types are,
however, so marked that the impossibility of labelling the peasantry
of such a large slice of Europe with any one set of characteristics is
obvious. By reading Zola or George Sand, one gets an insight into the
peasant life which little else can give.
[10] Hannah Lynch, _French Life in Town and Country_.
One of George Sand's descriptions of the peasantry of the Cevennes is
vigorous and vivid. She writes of it as a race "meagre, gloomy,
rough, and angular in its forms and in its instincts. At the tavern
every one has his knife in his belt, and he drives the point into the
lower face of the table, between his legs; after that they talk, they
drink, they contradict one another, they become excited, and they
fight. The houses are of an incredible dirtiness. The ceiling, made up
of a number of strips of wood, serves as a receptacle for all their
food and for all their rags. Alongside with their faults I cannot but
recognise some great qualities. They are honest and proud. There is
nothing servile in the manner in which they receive you, with an air
of frankness and genuine hospitality. In their innermost soul they
partake of the beauties and the asperities of their climate and their
soil. The women have all an air of cordiality and daring. I hold them
to be good at heart, but violent in character. They do not lack beauty
so much as charm. Their heads, capped with a little hat of black felt,
decked out with jet and feathers, give to them, when young, a certain
fascination, and in old age a look of dignified austerity. But it is
all too masculine, and the lack of cleanliness makes their toilette
disagreeable. It is an exhibition of discoloured rags above legs long
and stained with mud, that makes one totally disregard their
jewellery of gold, and even the rock crystals about their necks." This
description is growing out of date in regard to the hats and knives,
but the picturesque white cap, with its broad band of brightly
coloured ribbon, worn by nearly all the women over a certain age,
which George Sand does not mention, seems likely to persist.
The peasant women of France are too often extremely plain and built on
clumsy lines. Exceptional districts, such as Arles and other parts of
Provence, may produce beautiful types, but the average is not
pleasing. This, at least, is the consensus of opinion of those who
profess to know France well. The writer would not venture on such a
statement on his own authority, although his knowledge of a very
considerable number of the departments entirely endorses their
opinion. But the more one knows of provincial France the more prepared
does one become for surprises, and the less ready to generalise.
Between the educated and uneducated there is less of a gulf than in
other countries, on account of the very high average of good manners
to be found throughout the whole country, and because of the quick
intelligence that is common to the whole people. The almost pathetic
awkwardness of the old-fashioned English hodge scarcely exists in
France.
Superstitions among the peasantry are steadily dying out, even in
Brittany. The rising tide of knowledge is finding its way into every
creek and inlet, and is steadily submerging beliefs in supernatural
influences. At one time the rustics lived in the greatest fear of a
rain-producing demon who was called the _Aversier_, but the science of
meteorology has reduced his personality to a condition as nebulous as
the clouds that heralded his approach.
Until quite recent times a very large proportion of the medical work
in rural districts was carried out by the nuns of the numerous
convents, and the preference for the free services of the kindly
Sisters, however limited their knowledge, to those of the fully
qualified doctor of the locality is easily explained. The rural
practitioner's usual fee has only lately been raised from two francs
to three, but on driving any distance an additional charge of one
franc for every _kilometre_ is made. The fee of the town doctor, if he
is a general practitioner with a good practice, is from five to ten
francs a visit. If he belongs to the type of second-class specialist
not common in England but numerous in the cities of France, his fee is
from ten to twenty francs a visit. The first-class specialist charges
fifty francs, and sometimes seventy-five francs, for a visit. In the
country the medical man is often content with a bicycle as the means
of reaching his patients, for his income is not very often above L500
a year. No doubt the suppression of the monastic orders in France has
improved the position of the doctors, who found few patients in
certain parts of the country, especially the north-west, where the
fervour of religious belief inclined the rustic to put the most
complete faith in the prescriptions of the nuns. No doubt their ample
experience in the treatment of small ailments (which the average
practitioner so often finds tiresome) gave the Sisters considerable
success in their medical work. Women doctors in every country could
enormously supplement the work of the men, and perhaps the day will
come when the general practitioner has a lady assistant to look after
the minor ailments which so often become serious through lack of
sufficient attention. How relieved would numbers of men doctors be if
they could turn over to a lady assistant the visiting of all cases of
chronic colds, dyspepsia, and the like!
Whole books have been devoted to the _chateau_ life of France, and it
would be easy to overstep the limits of this chapter in writing on
this interesting subject. The wayfarer in France who knows nothing, or
next to nothing, of the interiors of the large houses he sees
scattered over the country would probably say that they all looked as
though shut up and for sale. He sees in his mind the weed-grown main
avenue and the ill-kept pathways. Visions come to him of lawns that
have grown into hay-fields, of formal gardens converted into vegetable
gardens, of terrace balustrades falling into decay, of walls whose
plaster has fallen away in patches like those of a Venetian _palazzo_,
of closed shutters, and a look of splendours that have passed. Those
who have seen a little more than the mere outsides of the great houses
will tell of occupants whose incomes have shrunk to such small sums
that they are reduced to living in a few rooms of their ancestral
homes, with insufficient servants to do more than keep the place
habitable, and to maintain the output of the kitchen garden and a few
flowers for the house. That there are many such _chateaux_ is
perfectly true. The occupants are mainly anti-Republican in their
views. They belong to other days, and are too proud to enter any
profession which would bring them into jarring contact with the big
majority who are without Royalist leanings. This obliges them to live
in threadbare simplicity on the small income their shrunken fortunes
provide. Two or three old servants, a few dogs, a horse or two, and a
few other luxuries surround them. Formal visits at long intervals are
paid to neighbours, who often live at some distance. The _cure_ and
perchance the doctor are intimate visitors; there may be a few
relations who come for visits, but this is often the whole of the
social intercourse of M. and Mme. X., who reside in a portion of a
_chateau_ of the time of Louis XV. which stands surrounded by a large
tract of woodland. But ample incomes, and here and there great wealth,
maintain many of the great houses of the countryside with modern
luxury in every department. Changes have come in the _chateaux_ in
recent years which have made breaches in the wall of old-fashioned
formality that was so universal until quite lately. Instead of sweet
wine and little hard sponge fingers, tea and _brioches_ appear at _le
five o'clock_, as it is often called. Where the old-fashioned ideas of
faithful servants will allow it, and the masters and mistresses have
felt the influences that flow from Paris, changes in furnishing appear
in the abandonment of the bareness and austerity of the
reception-rooms. Where such influences have not penetrated, one may be
quite sure to find all the furniture in the rooms ranged against the
walls, and a complete absence of flowers, books, or the smaller odds
and ends of convenience or ornament common to most Anglo-Saxon homes.
There may be fine tapestries, numerous family portraits and other
pictures, elaborate pieces of Boule and ormolu furniture, ornate
clocks, and many other beautiful objects, but restraint and constraint
are the prevalent notes. Bare polished floors and staircases with only
small mats or rugs here and there remain characteristic of the
_chateau_ interior. Too often there is no more individuality in a
house than would exist were it thrown open to the public as a
show-place or museum.
In many of the _chateaux_ of the wealthy the charm of what is
essentially French is linked with modifications in the directions of
Anglo-Saxon convenience and comfort, producing much the same result
as is found in those English homes wherein an affection for a Louis
XV. atmosphere has introduced the tall silken or tapestried panels and
the stilted and elaborate furniture of the eighteenth century.
Surrounded by extensive forests containing wonderful green
perspectives, the _chateau_ is often quite cut off from the sights and
sounds of the outer world. When the time of the _chasse_ comes round,
the woods may perhaps be enlivened by visions of the _chasseurs_ in
pink or green coats, three-cornered hats, and tall boots, and the
sound of their big circular horns may be heard. The silence is more
effectually broken when shooting parties meet and the _battue_ takes
place.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AND PART OF THE OLD CITY OF CHARTRES.]
Motor-cars have made neighbours more accessible, and changes are
taking place on this account. In pre-motor days the mistress of a
_chateau_ was often quite unprepared for visitors. Madame Waddington,
the American wife of a senator, who has put some of her experiences of
social intercourse in the country into a charming volume,[11]
describes a visit paid to a _chateau_ that was half manor, half farm.
[11] _Chateau and Country Life in France_, Mary K. Waddington, 1908.
We drove into a large courtyard, or rather farmyard, quite
deserted; no one visible anywhere; the door of the house was
open, but there was no bell nor apparently any means of
communicating with any one. Hubert cracked his whip noisily
several times without any result, and we were just wondering what
we should do (perhaps put our cards under a stone on the steps)
when a man appeared, said Mme. B. was at home, but she was in the
stable looking after a sick cow--he would go and tell her we were
there. In a few minutes she appeared, attired in a short,
rusty-black skirt, sabots on her feet, and a black woollen shawl
over her head and shoulders. She seemed quite pleased to see us,
was not at all put out at being caught in such very simple
attire, begged us to come in, and ushered us through a long,
narrow hall and several cold, comfortless rooms, the shutters not
open, and no fires anywhere, into her bedroom. All the
furniture--chairs, tables, and bed--was covered with linen. She
explained that it was her _lessive_ (general wash) she had just
made, that all the linen was _dry_, but she had not had time to
put it away, and she called a maid, and they cleared off two
chairs--she sat on the bed. It was frightfully cold. We were
thankful we had kept our wraps on. She said she supposed we would
like a fire after our long cold drive, and rang for a man to
bring some wood. He (in his shirt-sleeves) appeared with two or
three logs of wood, and was preparing to make a fire with them
_all_, but she stopped him, said one log was enough, the ladies
were not going to stay long; so, naturally, we had no fire and
clouds of smoke. She was very talkative, never stopped, told us
all about her servants, her husband's political campaigns.... She
asked a great many questions, answering them all herself; then
said, 'I don't offer you any tea, as I know you always go back
to have your tea at home, and I am quite sure you don't want any
wine.'
Washing days only occur in large French households once a quarter, or
at the most monthly, so when the moment arrives the whole
establishment is in a ferment. An orgy of soap-suds takes place, and
coaling ship in the Navy is scarcely more disturbing to the even flow
of daily affairs.
Conversation, where people seldom paid a visit to Paris, ran always in
a groove in the _chateaux_ and lesser houses described by the young
American. The subjects were the woods, the hunting, the schoolmaster,
the _cure_, local gossip, and much about the iniquities of the
Republic.
_Chateau_ life is too frequently dull. It as often as not is as out of
touch with the realities of modern life as many English country houses
where there are no young folk, and where there is no active connection
with London and the busy world. The hunting season and shooting
parties bring life and activity for a time, but "twice-told tales of
foxes killed" do not carry any fertilising intellectual ideas into the
byways of upper-class life. An excess of formality pervades every
portion of the day, from the conversation on a new novel to the
afternoon drive or the solemn game of _bezique_ after dinner. There is
a tendency for politics to bulk largely in conversation, even among
women, while among men heat is easily generated on this topic, the
French being naturally bellicose. Subjects outside France, and matters
that do not directly concern the French, rarely come up for
discussion, unless the occupants of the _chateau_ are _intellectuels_.
It is mainly due to political controversy that duels arise, nearly all
the recent encounters having been between journalists and politicians.
At the present day, honour is commonly satisfied when the first blood
has been drawn, and when pistols are used, hits are infrequent. To
show how lightly he took the matter, Ste. Beuve fought under an
umbrella. Thiers fought a duel, and so also did the elder Dumas,
Lamartine, Veuillot, Rochefort, and Boulanger. Even to-day (1913)
septuagenarian generals are not too old to challenge one another,
General Bosc (seventy-two) having sent his second to demand
satisfaction of General Florentin (seventy-seven) for an unfounded
charge of encouraging the use of illegal badges in societies formed
for the training of boys in military duties! It is astonishing that
the French should maintain duelling when it is well known how opposed
was Napoleon to the absurd practice. "Bon duelliste mauvais soldat,"
he used to say, and when challenged by the King of Sweden, his reply
was that he would order a fencing-master to attend him as
plenipotentiary. But the French have a keen sense of personal honour,
and one remembers that Montaigne said, "Put three Frenchmen together
on the plains of Libya, and they will not be a month in company
without scratching each other's eyes out."
A poor man can hardly afford the luxury of a duel, for in Paris it
costs about 300 francs, and if one has no friend who is a doctor
willing to attend without a fee, the disbursements will even exceed
this amount! The first expenses are the taxis for your seconds when
they go to meet the other fellow's supporters. These meetings take
place at cafes, and their bills have to be met by the duellists.
Pistols, if they are used, are hired from Gastine Renette, who
inflicts a scorching charge of about 100 francs for the loan. If
swords are used they are bought, and the outlay is less, but not every
one who is challenged is sufficiently expert to run the chances of
using white weapons. Further expenses are incurred in the hiring of a
vehicle in which to drive to the spot selected for the honourable
encounter. The drive is punctuated by halts for refreshment for the
doctor and the seconds, as well as the coachman. When the conflict has
taken place there is often much more than "coffee for one" to be paid
for by the duellist. Not only does custom require him to invite doctor
and seconds to lunch at an expensive restaurant, but if the duel has
re-established amicable relations, there is a double party to be
entertained. To find a quiet and suitable spot for the meeting is
often exceedingly difficult, the _gendarmerie_ in such convenient
places as the Meudon Woods being perpetually on the alert, and having
offered rewards to any who warned them of the arrival of "a double set
of four serious-looking gentlemen in black frock-coats arriving in
landaus, with one gentleman in each set with his _gueule de travers_."
Mr. Robert Sherard has described the preliminaries to a duel forced
upon him a few years ago.
"... My fencing had grown very rusty," he wrote, "so ... I went
to a fencing school to be coached. The master ... had the
reputation of being able to teach a man in two lessons how not to
get killed in a sword duel. I was not anxious to get killed, so I
availed myself of his instructions. These mainly consisted in
showing one how to hold one's point always towards one's
adversary with extended arm. When a man so holds his weapon it
is, it appears, impossible for the other man to wound him. At the
same time it is said to be advisable to develop great suppleness
of leg and ankle so as to be able to leap back, still holding
one's point extended, in the event of the other man's rushing
forward with such impetuosity as possibly to break down one's
guard. It was further explained to me, that if whilst leaping
back I could also dig forward with my sword, most satisfactory
results might be hoped for (for me, _not_ for the other man)."
It was disappointing to Mr. Sherard, after gaining much proficiency in
leaping backwards while digging forward with his point, to find that
his antagonist would only fight with pistols.