In the good old days, the tiller of the soil, the peasant, the backbone of the nation, found that a numerous family added to his wealth. All used to work and bring their bit of bread to the frugal repast. While the eldest drove the team afield, the youngest, clad in his first pair of breeches, took the brood of Ducklings to the pond. [55] These patriarchal ways are becoming rare. Progress sees to that. Of course, it is an enviable thing to scorch along on a bicycle, working your legs up and down like a distracted Spider; but there is a reverse to the medal: progress brings luxury, but creates expensive tastes. In my village, the commonest factory-girl, earning her ten-pence a day, sports on a Sunday sleeves puffed at the shoulders and feathers in her hat like the fine ladies’; she has a sunshade with an ivory handle, a padded chignon, patent-leather shoes, with open-work stockings and lace flounces. O Goose-girl, I in my short linen jacket dare not look at you as you pass my door on your Sunday parade along the high-road! You make me feel too small with your smart raiment. The young men, on the other hand, are assiduous frequenters of the café, which is much more luxurious than the old-fashioned pot-house. Here they find vermouth, bitters, absinthe, amer Picon, in short the whole collection of stupefying drugs. Such tastes as these make the fields seem too humble and the soil too stubborn. Since the receipts no longer come up to the expenses, they leave the land for the town, which is better-suited, so they imagine, for money-making. Alas, saving is no more practicable there than here! The workshop, where opportunities of spending money lie in wait by the score, makes a man no richer than the plough. But it is too late: you have made your bed; and you remain a poverty-stricken townsman, in terror of paternity. And yet this country, with its glorious climate, fertility, and geographical position, is invaded by a host of cosmopolitans, sharks and sharpers of every sort. Long ago, it used to attract the sea-roving Phœnicians; the peace-loving Greeks, who brought us the alphabet, the vine and the olive-tree; the Romans, those harsh rulers, who handed down to us barbarities very difficult to eradicate. Swooping on this rich prey came the Cymri, the Teutons, the Vandals, the Goths, the Huns, the Burgundians, the Suevi, the Alani, the Franks, the Saracens, hordes driven hither by every wind that blows. And all this heterogeneous mixture was melted down and absorbed by the Gallic nation.