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_.