Michelet's interest in Europe was centred on France and confined to _le peuple_; a term in which he ofttimes included the _bourgeois_, as well he might, though he more often regarded those who worked with their hands. He repeatedly says: "I myself have been one of those workmen, and, although I have risen to a different class, I retain the sympathies of my early conditions." Michelet's judgment was quite independent and original when he compared the different classes; and he had a decided preference for that section which cultivates the soil, though by no means did he neglect those engaged in trade and manufacture. The _ouvrier industriel_ was as much entitled to respect as the labourer in the fields, or even the small tenant-farmer. He regretted, of course, the competition which turned _industrialisme_ into a cut-throat policy. He furthermore had this to say concerning foreign trade: "Alsace and Lyons have conquered art and science to achieve beauty for others.... The 'fairy of Paris' (the _modiste_) meets, from minute to minute, the most unexpected flights of fancy--and she _or he_ does to-day, be it recalled. _Les étrangers_ come in spite of themselves, and they buy of her (France); _ils achètent_--but what?--patterns, and then go basely home and copy them, to the loss, _but to the glory_, of France. "The Englishman or the German buys a few pieces of goods at Paris or Lyons; just as in letters France writes and Belgium sells." On the whole, Michelet thought that the population was more successful in tilling the soil than in the marts of the world; and there is this to be said, there is no question but what France is a self-contained country, though its arts have gone forth into the world and influenced all nations. Paris is, ever has been, and proudly--perhaps rightly--thinks that it ever will be, the artistic capital of the world. Georges Avenel has recently delivered himself of a screed on the "Mechanism of Modern Life," wherein are many pertinent, if sometimes trite, observations on the more or less automatic processes by which we are lodged, fed, and clothed to-day.