ORGANISED PHILANTHROPY AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
It would be difficult to say whether or no France compares favourably
with England in the matter of philanthropy and the poor laws. But this
much must be admitted in favour of the Republican Government,—charity
was never so widely practised, was never so effectual or so free-handed,
as it is to-day in France. You will hear the futile nobles and those who
would pass for a part of the aristocracy by the mere virtue of adopting
its vices and prejudices, assure you that everything was better under
the _ancien régime_; that shopkeepers, peasants, farmers, and workmen
were all better off when they depended upon an absolute king. French
Catholics, like nearly all other Catholics I know, soar above argument,
logic, the surprises, revelations, and irrefragable testimony of history.
What they desire to have been, to have happened, must have been and
happened, and there is nothing more to be said. And so to-day, whenever
a handful of titled malcontents out of office, followed by a train of
wealthy and fashionable imitators, rail at a Government indifferent to
their interests, it is solemnly maintained that the people groan and
sweat under tyrannical laws, and that France has gone to the dogs. A
statement more contrary to truth and fact could not possibly be made.
Without examining even the enormous efforts of private charity to
improve the condition of the poor, we need only take up the subject of
Public Assistance to assure ourselves that the incessant preoccupation,
under republican rule, of the municipalities all over France is the
amelioration of the lot of the unfortunate classes of humanity. If you
lend an indulgent ear to the Catholics, they will assure you that the
municipality of Paris, because hitherto it has been democratic and
secular, is a mere gang of thieves, that the public funds are squandered
on private ends, and that not a penny of its vast revenues finds its
way into the pockets of the poor. This is simply a calumny—a stupid,
groundless invention. The _Assistance Publique_ has done more for the
poor than all the kings of France put together. In the days of Louis XIV.
there was no such thing as a public lying-in hospital. Wretched women,
without a home, or means of any kind to obtain shelter for the birth of
their children had to go to the Hôtel de Ville, where they lay on the
floors, and even two occupied each of the few beds, and childbirth took
place in a state of indescribable filth and discomfort.
The calumniated _Assistance Publique_ has built a large _maternité_,
where mothers and infants receive all possible care; and, in case of
pressure on their space, they pay midwives, properly diplomaed, to take
charge of poor women in their own houses. Everything at present is so
comfortably organised in these public institutions that many women of
small means prefer to avail themselves of them rather than endure the
domestic upheaval of a confinement at home. It should, however, be
admitted that the _Assistance Publique_ took the idea from M. Pinard’s
charmingly situated _maternité_ of the Boulevard Port Royal. M. Pinard is
something more than a celebrated _accoucheur_; he is a philanthropist,
or, as his enthusiastic disciple, Dr. Franck Brentano, said of him when
kindly doing me the honours of the _maternité_ of the Boulevard Port
Royal, he is a saint. He decided that his hospital should be cheerfully
situated, and so it lies in lovely gardens, and, on every side, the
patients have views of flowers and trees and green spaces between
well-kept paths. Not a hospital this, surely, but an elegant old mansion,
through whose long, open windows the fragrance and bloom of flowers
carry joy to the senses, while the song of birds makes perpetual music
for the weary convalescents. Dr. Franck Brentano showed me the trim
rose-beds with the proud intimation that it was M. Pinard who reared
them exclusively for his invalids. From time to time he gathers them,
and places a rose, moist with its early dew, beside a patient, bringing
her, with such delicacy, the assurance that she is, for him, something
more than a public patient. Not so were cherished unfortunate women
under the _ancien régime_. We laugh at the official legend bequeathed
France by the Revolution, and, of a surety, we are not justified in
that laughter. If liberty, equality, and fraternity are not all that
they might be in France to-day, there has been made a considerable step
towards their accomplishment which the conscientious observer is forced
to recognise. If brotherhood is still in a nebulous state, the same
cannot be said of equality. Where, in London, will you find the head
of a large hospital cultivating roses and gathering them at sunrise to
carry a breath of delight to a worn-out woman of the people? Such a
division and infrangible distance as exist between classes in England are
here no longer known. The people are the better for it, and certainly
society is not the worse. If republican independence has done nothing
else for France, it deserves national gratitude for having abolished what
flourishes so desperately in England,—the painful whine of poverty, not
ashamed to cringe, and the smirking curtsey and bob of the people, proud
to acknowledge what they are pleased to call their betters.
I have heard a great deal of abuse of the lay nurses who replace the
sisters now in public hospitals. All I can say is, that I was struck
with the spirit of cordiality and exquisite humanity which seemed to
emanate from everybody I encountered at M. Pinard’s _maternité_. This,
of course, may be due to the governing hand, for where so rare a nature
as the chief commands the illimitable devotion and passionate admiration
of his subordinates, it is but natural we should find an atmosphere of
disinterestedness and good-will. That M. Pinard’s delicate consideration
for oppressed womanhood does not end or even begin in this well-ordered
hospital is proven by the establishment of his admirable asylum close by.
This is a home for friendless women awaiting their turn to be received
into the hospital. Here they may come for two or three months, free to
live and work as they like, to go to mass, to the temple or synagogue,
or to no church whatever; and, by sewing or some such light labour,
to earn a little to put by for the day they leave the _maternité_.
Surely this is the most practical of all forms of free philanthropy.
No propaganda, no religious exclusiveness, no other preoccupation, but
the wish to persuade a despairing creature to live and give life under
the best conditions of care and personal kindness. Yes; let us frankly
admit that the Revolution has not been in vain, in spite of its horrors,
its inexplicable baseness, its acts of inconceivable cowardice. The
men who made it were no heroes, and we can bear at this hour to call
them remorselessly by their proper names. But the evil they did in the
cause of humanity has finally led to the amelioration of their race.
Lay France, with all her liberal aspirations, with her generous hatred
of injustice, tyranny, and oppression, bids fair to construct a France
which shall be the real and not the illusive home of freedom. The land
that can produce men and women like M. Pinard and Madame Coralie Cahen
need have no fear of the triumph of decadence. There were nearly seven
thousand births during the past year at the _maternité_. When we remember
that women are not obliged to give their names, and that their secret is
honourably kept in the teeth of all inquiries that may be made, there
seems less and less reason to-day for the extremities of despair.
The _Assistance Publique_ is not exclusively concerned with hospitals.
The increase of its income and the increase of its expenditure
sufficiently testify to the extent of public charity in France. In 1834
its income reached 9,946,874 francs, and in 1894, 43,043,935 francs. The
number of patients received in hospitals in 1834 was 66,521, and in
1894, 172,500; of children helped in 1834, 21,781, and in 1894, 48,000.
It disposes of 11,989 beds in hospitals, 12,370 beds in asylums, and the
average of persons helped is 480,600 a year. In outdoor help it spends
11,365,951 francs.
Again to compare the _ancien régime_ with the new order of things. It
was not until 1660 that the horrors of forsaken childhood obtained
commiseration. Yet St. Louis had lived; more than one king had been
called the father of his people, and the good King Henri IV. of legend
had asserted his royal wish that each family should have a fowl boiling
in the pot. It was the work of St. Vincent of Paul who, after founding
the excellent order of Sisters of Charity, bethought himself of unwelcome
babes left to suffer the consequences of their parents’ fault. Since
then the idea has rapidly progressed. In 1881 the _Conseil Général de la
Seine_ instituted what is greatly superior to the mere animal succour of
new-born infancy, the _Service des Moralement Abandonnés_. The morally
abandoned! How much more needful, how much more clamorous for the good
of the race, is the succour of these little creatures, morally depraved,
from want of training! In 1888 this society received 2062 boys and 905
girls, the numerical difference being explained by the fact that there
are always more ways of disposing of girls than of boys, and their
adoption by private persons is much more frequent.
Too much praise cannot be given to the _Assistance Publique_ for the
admirable fashion in which it discharges its duty to the children placed
under its protection. Zola in _Fécondité_ records the improbable tale of
a whole town in Normandy living solely upon the slow murder of babies put
out to nurse by the institution. I need give only one example of what has
come under my own notice. My servant, unfortunately married, was deserted
many years ago with three children, one new-born. The Public Assistance
took the two elder boys and placed them out to nurse in a farmhouse,
where every quarter an inspector visited them, and himself inquired
into the condition of their health and general welfare. The inspector
makes his report to the prefect, and his visits are supplemented by the
doctor’s. It is he who signs the agreement of apprenticeship, distributes
clothes, and pays the nurses and adopted parents. As an encouragement
to treat the children well, these receive a present of money when each
child reaches the age of thirteen; an outfit is bestowed upon the child,
who is then apprenticed, preferably for farm-work, and, in order that
the precious ties of family life shall not be broken, it is invariably
exacted that the boys shall continue to live with their foster parents
during the years of apprenticeship. A portion of the boy’s earnings is
placed in the Caisse d’Épargne to make him a tiny capital, when of age to
start upon his own account. My servant’s children were well-treated and
happy, and when she went down to the farm to spend ten days with them,
she found two healthy lads and a hospitable family to receive her, and in
their midst enjoyed a delightful holiday. The boys had their pass-books,
and could make her a present each of twenty-five francs. The other day
one of them decided to come to Paris to earn his bread, and even at the
station the mother was not allowed to claim him, it being a notorious
fact that boys fresh from the country often fall into evil hands at the
big railway stations. Scrupulous in the acquittal of its duties, the
_Assistance Publique_ will only deliver its charge into the mother’s hand
in official circumstances that render all fraud impossible. The boy wore
a fine new suit of clothes and new boots, and his great fear was that,
leaving the care of the _Assistance Publique_ these peacock feathers
would be taken from him. But they were not, and when he came to see me, I
found, instead of a cowed charity lad, a pink-cheeked, open-eyed youth,
well dressed and strong, with an independent air and an excellent fashion
of speech. I sent him with a card of recommendation to the _Figaro_, and
he was engaged on the spot. It speaks well for the people who brought him
up, that he already regrets them and their quiet shepherd-life, and says
he was much happier in the country than ever he expects to be in Paris.
In the case of children leaving the correctional schools, the State has
organised several schools of apprenticeship for the young prisoners of
both sexes.
There are, as well, a considerable number of these establishments under
the direction of private persons and charitable societies. The boys
are taught a trade and are classed according to their antecedents, if
brought up in town or country. They work seven hours a day, and the
money they earn is placed to their account in the Savings Bank. The
colony at Belle-Ile-en-Mer receives the pick of this corrupt young
world, and trains them for marine service. They are taught reading,
writing, history, geography, and arithmetic, while Sunday is given
up to gymnastics and long walks with their professors. The rewards
for good behaviour are—praise, additional food, good-conduct stripes
with pecuniary remuneration, gifts, a grant of three francs a month,
confidential employment, and weekly leave of absence, provisional
freedom, and military service. The Maison Darnetal for girls, near Rouen,
has excited such admiration that the Italian Government has ordered its
nuns to imitate it. Young girls here, when they leave the correctional
school, are trained as farm wives, to grow fruit and vegetables, to make
butter and cheese, to rear fowl; and they themselves carry to market the
produce of their labour and learn to make excellent bargains. When they
have earned their freedom, they are independent young women, capable of
directing a farm, with all the thrift, the natural, keen intelligence and
unsleeping industry of that most admirable portion of the French race,
the hard-working, good-humoured women of the people.
For years past there has been raging in France a bitter war between
the Catholics and the Radicals on the subject of hospital nurses. The
Republic, which mistrusts the Catholic party, has sought to limit their
power in every direction. It was a mistake, I think, to attack them at
hospital beds, for if there is a place which belongs by divine right,
if I may say so, to the nun, it is the side of a sick-bed. With their
guimps and coifs, their life of religious meekness, their cheerfulness
and self-abnegation, they make ideal sick nurses. Then, the patient
feels that with them it is not a profession, the means to an end, that
money is not their object, nor are they likely to forget their duty
in a flirtation with the doctor. In England and France I have had,
unfortunately, experience of both kinds of nurses, and I unhesitatingly
give my preference to the French nun. She is softer, kinder, gayer,
and more delicate and modest in her handling of a patient than the
average lady nurse of England. She nurses you for love of nursing, or
for the good of her soul, and she has the secret of a boundless sympathy
and untiring good-will. Yet many scientific Frenchmen and doctors,
while praising her disinterestedness and purity of motive, allow her
unsatisfactory peculiarities. For instance, they complain of her
indocility to the doctor and surgeon, and state that when a difference
of opinion between them and the mother superior arises, the religious
sick nurses will obey the latter rather than those in whose hands lies
the fate of the patient. Dr. Fauvel, of le Hâvre, stated before the
International Congress of Assistance, relative to the laity of the new
hospital of that town: “As regards primary instruction and professional
education, the nuns are in no wise superior, quite the contrary; with
an incomplete professional education, the lay staff has shown special
knowledge ignored by the nuns, nursing the sick with greater intimate
skill, preparing instruments, baths, helping the doctors and pupils more
efficiently, being more docile in taking the thousand precautions ordered
in operations and the dressing of wounds.... It is a mistake to regard
as false all the accusations made against the sisters; and I declare
emphatically that I have found in lay nurses an equal and often a more
spontaneous devotion.” This is quite possible, but I maintain, upon
personal experience of both methods, that the religious atmosphere brings
a refinement and delicacy into the sick room by no means to be despised.
Whatever throws a charm, a grace, a sweetness over the sick-bed carries
an inappreciable value, and Frenchwomen, at least, however religious,
have that delightful tact of their race to prevent them from worrying a
recalcitrant patient on the subject of her faith.
At Lyons, as early as the fifteenth century, a medium was found between
congregational and secular sick-nursing. It appears to work excellently,
though the persons in this state affair who deserve our pity are the
unfortunate sick nurses, whose sole reward for a life of unceasing labour
is the precarious value of fifty low masses after death. I cannot, for
the life of me, see why these poor women, so wretchedly paid in life,
should not at least enjoy the glory of fifty high masses and a monument.
But women who devote themselves to public service are, in all lands, and
under every _régime_, ancient or modern, gallantly exploited. It is a
recognised duty to overwork them, underfeed them, and pay them next to
nothing, and then expect gratitude from them for permitting them to waste
their lives in the service of their ungrateful fellow-men. In mediæval
times the town of Lyons decided to profit by the repentance of loose
women, and ordered them to attend the sick for the good of their souls.
They took no vows, but little by little they adopted a uniform, and, in
1598, a meeting of Lyonese doctors resolved that this lay order of sick
nurses should be known as _servants of the poor_. There is such a pretty
mediæval twang about this name, that we salute it, still existing in
these modern days, with respect. This lay order has existed throughout
all the storms of French history, and works as well to-day as when it
was founded four centuries ago. True, it is now recruited from quite a
different class, and is divided into three terms of service: _novices_,
_prétendants_, _sœurs croisées_, or decorated sisters. When a young girl
wishes to become a “servant of the poor,” she is severely catechised
as to the reasons of her choice, is compelled to furnish proofs of
her capacity for her chosen task, and the consent of her parents or
guardians. Inquiries are made about her, and if she is accepted, her
novitiate lasts a year, during which period she wears no uniform. Then
she becomes a _prétendant_, and wears a uniform, receiving in payment of
her incessant service the sum of eighty francs a year, out of which she
must pay for her uniform and linen. She can leave when she likes, or the
hospital committee can discharge her for any reason whatever. She obeys a
superior nurse, who in turn obeys the administration, and her period of
service lasts from twelve to fifteen years. Imagine her, then, wishful of
rest, far away from lint and bistouries and hospital odours. Her £3 4_s._
a year will not have afforded her much chance of putting anything by. But
if, happily, her vocation for unrewarded service lasts, she is decorated
with a silver cross; and though she still takes no vows, and can leave
when she wishes, she is regarded as having a life-claim upon the
administration. They cannot now turn her into the streets, and there is
no fear of her dying of hunger. In return for this assurance her salary
is reduced to forty francs a year. But she is titled _Cheftaine_, with
also its pretty ringing sound of the Middle Ages; she has seventeen days
holiday every year, and she has her silver cross and fifty low masses!
There are eight hundred of these disinterested creatures in the city of
Lyons; and it will be admitted that the great silk centre of France knows
how to manage its affairs with prodigious economy.
It would be impossible, in a short chapter dealing with organised
philanthropy in France, to mention even a tenth of the private
institutions and associations that abound. In Paris alone there are
thirty orphanages for boys and a hundred and twenty for girls, the
deficiency on the side of the boys being supplied by innumerable
patronages, or boys’ clubs. There are forty-three societies for infancy,
eighty-seven _crèches_,—an excellent institution invented nearly fifty
years ago by M. Marbeau,—two hundred and ten infants’ schools, first
established by a Protestant clergyman in the Vosges, and now spread
all over France. In 1895, 37,253 children were placed in the country,
entailing an expense of 9,336,711 francs, and every year the number
increases.
Each denomination has its private and organised charities, and the late
Maxime du Camp awards the palm of incomparable perfection in this path to
the children of Israel. The Rothschild hospital, the Rothschild asylum
for old ages of both sexes, the children’s school, and school for girls
of Madame Coralie Cahen, are the best of their kind in Paris. When one
reads the story of Jewish charities in Paris, one is stupefied by the
senseless outburst of mad and wicked anti-semitism which rages in France
to-day. The Baron Henri de Rothschild has instituted a sort of mothers’
refuge up in the poor and populous quarter of Belleville, where he
gives advice to mothers, and supplies them with a litre of sterilised
milk daily. Believe me, when you dive below the surface of Paris, you
will find it to be something nobler than a city of pleasure. Poverty
and misery abound because, alas! they are inseparable from existence;
but there is no city in the world where poverty is more endurable than
in Paris, none where it is sweetened with a surer and more efficacious
fraternity. Between the classes there is not that intolerable arrogance
and impertinence which constitute the blight of British philanthropy. In
England I have seen charitable women go into poor men’s cottages with
the air of tamers entering a menagerie. They ask unendurable questions,
fling open windows without consulting their victims, pooh-pooh everything
said to them, order this, command that, till I have marvelled at the
long-suffering of the poor, and wondered that they restrained themselves
from flinging their torturers out of the window. And I have remarked
that these busybodies, under the guise of philanthropy, rarely brought
the victims of their implacable sense of Christian duty anything but
their arid advice. Now, whatever the failings of the French are, I can
confidently assert that tactless spiritual arrogance is not among them,
still less an impertinent interference in private matters. They will
not open their purse as freely as the English do—the French themselves
are the first to admit it—and the secretary of the Academy of Medicine,
speaking to me of English private charities, and the vaster scale on
which they are managed, said, with delightful gaiety of admission, “In
England, you know, you always find a benevolent old lady or gentleman,
who will give you for a charitable project £20,000, as I might give
you two sous”; but they will not thrust their advice upon the poor with
wounding contempt as the English do.
If you would obtain the most striking possible contrast of the hospital
workings of the old and new _régimes_, comparison should be made of the
authentic plan of the old hospital under the kings of France, and the new
hospital of the Institut Pasteur under the directorship of M. Duclaux.
Under the old system, patients suffering from various maladies, all more
or less contagious, lay four in one bed, two with their heads above, two
with their heads below, the legs of the four touching. We may imagine the
rest of the details in keeping with this frightful situation—sanitary
details not improved between the eighth and eighteenth centuries—food,
attendance of doctors, surgeons, and nurses of the worst and coarsest
kind, sickness not other than a filthy and hideous visitation of destiny,
the inevitable precursor of the common ditch of burial. One wonders what
degree of physical despair and disgust it was necessary to reach in those
days to face the horrors of a public hospital. The courage such awful
contact entailed means, to me, greater far than any involved in fronting
the vicissitudes of battle. To die untended and forsaken on the bloodiest
field of history, with unchanged linen, unwashed and unbound wounds, the
visible prey of vultures, without hope of decent burial, were surely an
end more honourable and less nauseous than illness and death in a public
hospital of Paris in the much lauded and poetised days of the _ancien
régime_.
A well-known charitable institution of France is the order of the Little
Sisters of the Poor. These Little Sisters are highly popular, and
whenever anyone _bien pensant_ (as the Catholics call themselves) dies,
his or her relatives hasten to send all the wardrobe of the defunct
to the Little Sisters. A branch house is almost beside me, and I see
cartloads of clothes driven off frequently for sale from its door. I
visited the establishment once, and cannot say that I was much impressed
with the spirit of charity revealed to me. To enter this asylum, men and
women must have attained the age of sixty. The old men are better cared
for, better treated, by the Little Sisters than the old women. The best
side of the house is theirs; they have a handsome covered terrace to
walk along when they are not in the gardens, have a smoking-room, and
can spend their days playing cards. Their quilts are of silk and velvet
patchwork, while the old women must be thankful for cotton, and the nun
who showed me over the establishment reserved for the men all her smiles
and pleasant greetings. The poor old women got nothing but sour looks and
silence, and while the men amused themselves, these were condemned to
hard work in the big laundry and kitchen. “As we have no servants,” said
the nun, “the old women must work.” To enter a charitable institution
over sixty, having worked hard all one’s life, in order to stand over
a wash-tub, seems a dubious advantage. A very devout Catholic friend,
with whom I discussed this fact, has told me of a lasting grievance she
has against these Little Sisters of the Poor. A broken-down gentle old
washerwoman, near seventy, in whom she took an interest, was recommended
to them, a friend paying four hundred francs to the asylum. The nuns
are not supposed to take money, but it is never refused, and in this
case the generous donor meant to secure a little extra comfort for the
hard-worked old soul. She was put in there to rest from the wash-tub,
but the excellent nuns understood it differently, and placed her at once
before it. Within a year she died from overwork. Whenever you penetrate
below the surface of conventual charities, they will always be found
profitable for the order and never for the individual. The hearts of nuns
seem implacably steeled against human suffering, steeled against pity
and generosity. They are among the worst paymasters and taskmasters in
the world, on the pretext that, being hard to themselves, nobody has the
right to expect that they shall be soft to others.
The Mont-de-Piété is a civil institution, which exists for the benefit
of the needy. It is not in the least like our pawn-offices, for here no
usury is practised, and the town benefits by any profits that accrue. The
central house is in the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, and there are four large
branch offices. Money is advanced on the objects offered, and when the
sum is brought back, interest is charged, and the objects are restored.
If no claim is put in at the end of eighteen months, the objects are
sold, and the profits are handed over to the _Assistance Publique_. All
classes of society in straitened circumstances have recourse to the
Mont-de-Piété which is a most useful institution.
Turn now to the latest public edifice for the poor under the Third
Republic. The late Baroness de Hirsch, a Jewess, was one of the several
founders—all of them women—of this splendid hospital, attached to the
Pasteur Institute. Here each patient has a room to himself free on the
raised ground-floor or on the story above. Below there are bath-rooms
and douches; there is a workshop for the carding of mattresses, each
patient sleeping on a new mattress, each mattress passing through an
immense steriliser. To improve upon the old method, by which doctors and
surgeons visit the patient at stated hours, a private house of handsome
dimensions has been built expressly for the doctor, who must be always
on the spot. In the case of contagious sickness there is the process of
purification in the lower cells, while ordinary cases of illness are,
after the _consultation à la hâte_, despatched to one of the bright,
clean, little sick rooms on the ground-floor. Here the rooms are divided
by glass partitions, which are muffed or not, as may be required.
Grown patients are more likely to wish for the privacy of muffed-glass
panels, whereas it is preferable that the panels should be transparent
when the patients are children and need constant supervision. During
convalescence, the patients, weary of solitude, can seek change by
transportation to a public ward, and there is a long glass gallery, or
winter garden, well located, and gay with green seats and tables, where
they can walk up and down, and receive their friends among the palms and
India-rubber trees. This part of the establishment has more the air of a
convalescent home than a public hospital. As deaths may occur even in the
best regulated hospitals, there is a subterranean passage constructed for
the _service des morts_, by which means the living are spared all contact
with lugubrious eventualities. M. Duclaux calculates that the yearly
expenditure of this admirable institution will reach £20,000. Let us hope
that those who profit by this foundation will prove not destitute of
good feeling towards those who have spent so much time, labour, money,
science, and thought on their behalf. But, alas! the poor are essentially
mistrustful of public charities. I know not why, but it is, nevertheless,
a fact that they seem to labour under the impression that such edifices
exist mainly to exploit and defraud them in some mysterious fashion. One
would approve of a sentiment of independence, and the conviction of a
sacred claim in their usage: but the feeling of distrust of them is ever
to be deplored.
It is due, no doubt, to groundless suspicions among the benefited
themselves, the flame of discontent being steadfastly and perfidiously
fanned by the Catholics, ever yearning for Catholic rule in France,
that all sorts of reports are spread as to maladministration of the
_Assistance Publique_. The fact is, of course, that centralised state
assistance to the poor can never be so cordial, so satisfactory
and helpful, as that administered by private hands. The State is a
functionary-tyrannised machine, which nobody thanks, and from which
everything is expected.
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INDEX
Académie Française, 147;
reception of M. Lavedan, 149;
reception of M. Hervieu, 151;
its restoration after the Terror, 154;
its influence and mission, 155;
prizes, 158
_Affaire Dreyfus_, 88, 93, 101, 126, 220, 237
Alsace and Lorraine, 102
Angoulême, 214
Anti-Semitism, 26, 53, 151
Aristocracy, 47;
its disaffection, 50;
the old-fashioned aristocrat, 55, 56;
the modern rowdy aristocrat, 52, 56, 75, 259
Army, 87;
its attitude, 90;
its popularity, 91;
the perils of militarism, 94;
conscription, 94;
a military document, 95;
military service, 99;
attitude of officers in civil courts, 101;
M. Urbain Gohier’s indictment of the army, 103, 104;
military plays, 105;
French generals, 108;
military rewards, 109;
_Au Tableau_, 110
Artisan, 219, 244
Assistance Publique, 284;
contrast of the state of the poor in Paris under the _ancien
régime_ and under the Third Republic, 284, 285, 288-292, 300
Aubernon, Madame, 257
_Aversier_, 17
Baccalauréat, 116
Balzac, 148, 205
Barrès, Maurice, 103, 156
Bazin, René, _La Terra qui Meurt_, 106, 205, 227
Béarn, 3
Blaguer, 255
Blaze de Bury, Madame, 178
Bodinière, 252
Bon Pasteur, 225
Bourgeoisie, the, 60;
its provincial pretensions, 5;
its prejudices, 63-65;
its passion for titles, 66;
the “little bourgeoise,” 264-274
Bourget, Paul, 51
Breton, 2;
Breton superstitions, 19
Brisson, M., 256
Brunetière, M., 53, 152, 156, 159
Catholicism, the cult of St. Anthony of Padua, 18;
hostility to the Republic, 89;
its influence, 128
Charbonnel, Victor, 252
Châteaux, 9, 21, 22
Child service, 223
Clericalism, 27
Comédie Française, 161;
its traditions, 161;
its composition, 163;
the new theatre, 164
Concierge, 277, 278
Conférence, la, 250
Conservatoire, 170-172
Convent life, 139-146
Country life, 5, 6, 25
Coppée, François, 103, 157, 236
Daudet, Alphonse, 172, 233
Demolins, M., 70, 113, 115, 117, 120
Duclaux, M., 241, 300, 304
Duruy, Georges, 104
École des Beaux Arts, 164
École Polytechnique, 104
Education, 112
England and France contrasted, 34, 37-42, 59, 65, 76, 118, 121, 167,
197, 206, 232
Environments of Paris, 82
Estaunié, M., _L’Empreinte_, 123, 127
Fabre, Ferdinand, 124
Fairs, 82
Farmer, 12
Fashionable Paris, 53
Faubourg St. Germain, 35, 50, 54, 55
Fiction, 118
Flats, 39
Flower markets, 43
Gallifet, General de, 108
Geoffrin, Madame, 256
Gouvernantes, 137
Grisette, 248, 274
Gyp, 50, 137, 259
Halévy, Ludovic and Daniel, 241
Halles, the, 43
Hirsch, Baroness de, 303
Hobereaux, 8-12
Home life, 55;
its economies and courtesies, 179, 188;
French table, 193, 194;
home habits, 197
Hospitals, 285, 298, 300
Hugo, Victor, 263
_Jacquou le Croquant_, 124
Jeanne of Angoulême, 214, 520
Jesuits, 123;
their mission and training, 124-127
Jeunesse Royaliste, la, 46
_Journal des Débats_, 231, 234
_Journal d’une Femme de Chambre_, 213-215, 234
Larroumet, Gustave, 254
Lemaître, Jules, “Ligue de la Patrie Française,” 156, 157, 236
_Le Vieux Marcheur_, 148-150, 225
“Little bourgeoise,” the, 264-274
“Little people,” 226, 264, 273, 274, 281
Little Sisters of the Poor, 301, 302
Lycées, 113-122
Maison Darnetal, 292
Marais, the, 31
Marchand de Vin, 245
Maternité, the, 285-287
Métayer, 227
Minister: Waldeck-Rousseau, 230, 237, 240
Molière, 255, 262
Mont-de-Piété, 303
Montmartre, 32, 38, 85, 248
Morality, 38, 42;
influences of public-school training, 117;
the moral training of Stanislas College, 130-137;
tolerance of vice, 176;
feminine cynicism, 177;
the Frenchman’s vices, 198
Motor cars, 60, 61
Napoleon, 46, 87, 110, 117, 154, 163, 234, 263
Nationalists, 75, 78, 79, 103, 220, 231, 236, 237
Nurses, religious and lay, 287, 293, 294
Orleans, Duc D’, 54, 91, 260
Paris and Parisianism, 28-57;
the gaiety and charm of Paris, 29;
the influence of women, 32;
the old streets of the Faubourg St. Germain, 35;
inoffensiveness of the streets, 38;
rents, 39;
walks, 41;
markets, 43;
Parisianism, 47;
aristocratic Paris, 50;
the old-fashioned noblewomen, 54, 55;
Parisian washerwomen, 220-222
Pastimes, 80-86
Patriotism, 80, 103, 236
Peasant, the, 202, 215, 228
Pellouaille, La, 202-205
People’s colleges, 238-244
Philanthropy, 283, 298
Pinard, M., 285-288
Press, 229-235
Prix de Rome, 166, 167
Public ball, 246, 247
Rag-Picker, 278-280
Renan, 258, 263
Sainte-Beuve, 153, 155, 158
Sand, George, 205
“Servants of the poor,” 295-297
Stanislas College, 128-135
Taine, 179
_Temps, Le_, 231, 233, 234
Vogüé, M. De, _Les Morts qui Parlent_, 225
Woman’s rôle, 200, 201
Zola, M., 156, 205, 213
THE END
[Illustration]
Our European Neighbours
Edited by WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON
12ᵒ. Illustrated. Each, net $1.20.
By Mail 1.30
I.—FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By HANNAH LYNCH.
“Miss Lynch’s pages are thoroughly interesting and suggestive. Her
style, too, is not common. It is marked by vivacity without any drawback
of looseness, and resembles a stream that runs strongly and evenly
between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page
description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a
capital piece of work.... Such well-finished portraits are frequent
in Miss Lynch’s book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real
excellence.”—_The London Academy._
“Miss Lynch’s book is particularly notable. It is the first of a series
describing the home and social life of various European peoples—a series
long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is frank,
vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book which is
not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special excellence
of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing’s, lies in her continual
contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up her praises:
‘The English are admirable: the French are lovable.’”—_The Outlook._
II.—GERMAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By W. H. DAWSON, author of “Germany and the Germans,” etc.
“The book is as full of correct, impartial, well-digested, and
well-presented information as an egg is of meat. One can only recommend
it heartily and without reserve to all who wish to gain an insight into
German life. It worthily presents a great nation, now the greatest and
strongest in Europe.”—_Commercial Advertiser._
III.—RUSSIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, sometime Secretary to H. H. Prince
Droutskop-Loubetsky (Equerry to H. M. the Emperor of Russia).
“We would recommend this above all other works of its character to those
seeking a clear general understanding of Russian life, character, and
conditions, but who have not the leisure or inclination to read more
voluminous tomes... It cannot be too highly recommended, for it conveys
practically all that well-informed people should know of ‘Our European
Neighbours.’”—_Mail and Express._
IV.—DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By P. M. HOUGH, B.A.
Not alone for its historic past is Holland interesting, but also for
the paradox which it presents to-day. It is difficult to reconcile the
old-world methods seen all over the country with the advanced ideas
expressed in conversation, in books, and in newspapers. Mr. Hough’s long
residence in the country has enabled him to present a trustworthy picture
of Dutch social life and customs in the seven provinces,—the inhabitants
of which, while diverse in race, dialect, and religion, are one in their
love of liberty and patriotic devotion.
“Holland is always interesting, in any line of study. In this work its
charm is carefully preserved. The sturdy toil of the people, their quaint
characteristics, their conservative retention of old dress and customs,
their quiet abstention from taking part in the great affairs of the world
are all clearly reflected in this faithful mirror. The illustrations are
of a high grade of photographic reproductions.”—_Washington Post._
V.—SWISS LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By ALFRED T. STORY, author of the “Building of the British Empire,” etc.
Switzerland forms one of the smallest states of Europe, being little more
than half the size of Scotland, and is almost the only one whose history
is the history of its people. It is the centre of the grandest scenery,
the birthplace of four of its best known and most considerable rivers,
and has for centuries enjoyed the special distinction of being the home
of democracy and freedom.
As Mr. Story points out, the average tourist, passing more or less
rapidly through the country, while impressed by the grandeur of the
scenery, fails utterly to secure any true insight into the home life of
the people. Mr. Story has, however, pitched his tent among the Alps and
has made a careful and sympathetic study of Swiss life,—the keynote of
which is simplicity and sincerity.
_IN PREPARATION_
SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By L. HIGGIN.
ITALIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
By LUIGI VILLARI.
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
_New York and London_