Briefly it may be stated that the French are a serious, cautious, patient, and exceedingly industrious and home-loving race, enjoying their hardly earned hours of pleasure in a more demonstrative fashion than do the nations whose climates are less sunny. They are critical and fond of generalisation, are capable of large and splendid moments of inspiration, and have on the whole feminine rather than masculine characteristics. CHAPTER III FAMILY LIFE--MARRIAGE AND THE BIRTH-RATE For an English resident in France to become an intimate in the home of a French family is a rare enough occurrence, and for a visitor to attempt to discover anything as to French family life first hand is generally a quest doomed to failure. In the vast mass of the middle classes the habit of mind is to remain as far as possible on the estate of one's ancestors or in the place in which one is known. There is no wish to live in foreign lands; those who are obliged to do so are pitied, and foreigners who come to take up permanent residence in France are in most instances regarded as people who, for some regrettable reason, are obliged to live outside their native land. This idea prevents the foreigner from receiving a cordial welcome, and he generally labels the people of his adopted land as inhospitable. On the other hand, it must be remembered that Belgians and Italians belonging to a common stock are assimilated with extreme rapidity into the great body of the nation. The hospitality of the average French household of the middle classes is, owing to the need for great thrift, narrowed down to the necessarily limited circle of the family. No sooner is the aforetime stranger joined to a family by the tie of marriage than the doors of the homes of all the relations are thrown wide open to receive him. It is this custom which makes it so essential for the prospective parents-in-law to ascertain the antecedents, the status, and financial prospects of a proposed husband for their daughter. Should some disaster, monetary or otherwise, fall upon this new addition of the family, the blow is inflicted upon all the members and all the branches of that circle. Similar enquiries are put on foot by the parents of a son who is intending to ally himself to another family. [Illustration: IN THE PLACE DU THEATRE FRANCAIS, PARIS.]