All French working men wear the blouse. It is almost like a uniform,
and by the colour of his blouse one can generally guess a man's trade.
Painters, masons, grocers, and bakers wear the white blouse; mechanics
and the better class of farmers seem to prefer black, and the ordinary
peasants and labourers wear blue.
The blouse is made like a big full shirt, and reaches nearly to the
knees. You will see men well dressed in black broadcloth, white shirts
and neat ties, and over all the blouse. It is really worn now to
protect the clothes, but is a survival of the olden times when all
trades wore a livery.
At the market at Grand Andelys one could but notice the neatly dressed
hair of the women folk.
All Frenchwomen, of whatsoever class, always dress their hair neatly
and prettily: and as the young girls seldom wear a hat or a bonnet, it
shows off to so much better advantage. This is all very well in summer,
but one wonders that they do not take cold in winter. The women wear
felt slippers, and thrust their feet into their _sabots_, when they go
out, which are not so clumsy as those of the men, dropping them at the
door when they come into the house. You will always see several pairs
of _sabots_ around the entrance to the home of a French working man.
The children by this time had got to where the calves stood in their
little fenced-in enclosure. They were not put in the market by the
church with the big cattle, and Germaine felt much happier when she
heard that they had been sold for farm purposes, and not for veal to
the big butcher in his long white apron, who stood by, jingling his
long knives that hung at his side from a chain around his waist.
As they were near the bakers', Marie suggested they buy a _brioche_,
and take it home to eat with their chocolate. _Brioche_ is a very
delicate bread made with eggs and milk, and is esteemed as a great
delicacy. The bakery looked very tempting filled with bread of all
kinds and shapes,--sticks of bread a yard long, loaves like a big ring
with a hole in the middle, big flat loaves which would nearly cover a
small table, twisted loaves and square loaves.
When they had made their purchases and rejoined their mother, they
found her with Madame Daboll, who told them that poor M. Masson, the
wealthy mill-owner, who had been ill so long, was dead, and there was
to be a grand funeral at the church of St. Sauveur the next day.
In France great respect is paid to the dead, and funerals are conducted
with as much pomp as one's circumstances permit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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