From earliest youth I had been accustomed to the trim and pleasing aspect of the French peasant, but lived long in Paris without ever having had occasion to examine this class more closely than a walk in the country permits. I chanced to summer one year in the Saintonge, and friends made me acquainted there with an excellent miller and his wife who dwelt upon their lands. I published in the _Speaker_ something about these delightful people afterwards, and I cannot do better than quote from that forgotten source: “In the Saintonge, as elsewhere, the local mood is ruled by politics, and private friendship gives way to public rivalry. I learnt all about these feuds from my friend the miller of La Pellouaille. Intellect was not his strong point, but there was a cheerful cynicism about him to lend flavour to his commonplaces. While others affected the heroic or patriotic, he was content to accommodate himself to circumstances. In reply to my query—to which party he belonged—he said, with a humorous smile, ‘_Dame_, I go with the strongest, naturally,’ which did not prevent him from giving his own sly hit at the Government. I give his views for what they are worth—neither brilliant nor original, but expressed with a certain geniality of tone and temper that kept him from bucolic dulness. If the Republic kept France out of mischief for the next twenty years, and carried her into fair prosperity, he believed, by that time, neither Bonapartist nor Legitimist would be remembered. For the moment the land was in a state of ferment, and he thought it a pity such excessive use should be made of those big words, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. These three republican assurances be qualified as mere _blagues_; and told me of a jocose tobacconist who wrote them on the sign-board of his shop, with an empty tobacco-pouch suspended from each, the pouches in France being called _blagues_. But the miller’s wife was certainly his pleasanter half. It was a delight to look upon a creature so human and wholesome and resourceful. She was a large, handsome woman, with a smile as fresh as new milk, and hazel eyes as clear as daylight, beaming with good-will, with vitality, and interest in her fellows. The kine browsing in the fields were not more mild. Such a woman has you right at nature’s heart—big and broad and bountiful. She is peasant in the best sense, proud of her spotless cap and apron, free and independent in her carriage, with shoulders that know no cringing stoop and voice that cannot whine.”