THE “LITTLE PEOPLE” OF PARIS 264 CHAPTER XII ORGANISED PHILANTHROPY AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE 283 INDEX 307 [Illustration] [Illustration] ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE PEASANT AT HOME—THE CANDIDATE _Frontispiece_ _Michelena._ BLESSING THE WHEAT 16 _J. A. Breton._ THE PARDON OF SAINT ANNE (BRITTANY) 42 _Guillou._ A REVIEW AT LONGCHAMP 88 CONSECRATED BREAD 114 _Dagnan-Bouveret._ THE REFECTORY 120 _A. Bouvin._ THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 130 THE FRENCH ACADEMY 148 THE FOYER OF THE OPERA-HOUSE 170 A SEASIDE SERVICE 190 _Edelfelt._ AN OUTDOOR MEAL 206 _Zimenez._ GLEANERS 262 _J. A. Breton._ [Illustration] [Illustration] FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY CHAPTER I FRENCH RURAL AND PROVINCIAL LIFE Among the nations of the earth there exists no more striking contrast than that between the people of Paris and the people of France. While the capital is a political furnace, where all sorts of conflicting ideas and opinions are continually boiling with such a rage of effervescence that the inhabitants, unaccustomed to the sense of calm and security, work, dance, and rest on the brink of an ever-menacing revolution; in the provinces town life drags through its monotonous days, absorbed in dull provincial interests, and rural life knows no other changes or menaces than those of the seasons. We distribute to each race certain broad characteristics, and trace out for them in all circumstances an ideal of conduct from which, if they will be true to their blood, they must not deviate. And so we are all decided upon the general French characteristic, excitability, forgetting the immense provincial differences that are to be found in the people of France as well as elsewhere. The heavy Flemish natives of Picardy, large eaters, deep drinkers, hard workers, slow of speech, somewhat coarse and unperverted, are as French as the natives of Latin Provence, garrulous, sober, alert, and exuberant. They are not less French than the wily, hard-bargaining Norman, who eats and drinks as much, but brings a clearer brain into business, and may always be relied upon to get the better of his neighbour in all transactions; or the dreamy Celt of the Breton coast, the thriftless slave of superstition, with brains to spare as well as prejudices, but not intended by nature as a pillar of the Temple of