MAY IN ANJOU.*

"AND you are not going P not going ?" remonstrated an old Peer and poet (once nominated as suitable President for the Heaven-and-Hell Amalgamation Society of Carlylean inven- tion), when a young English girl of his acquaintance had shown him an invitation to spend some time with an ancient French family at a well-known chdleau. "Jump at things, jump at things, my dear : it is a sin not to accept a chance of seeing the real family life of a foreign country ; it's a sin to refuse,—a sin," he repeated, with his quaint double emphasis. Evidently Miss Price did not commit such a sin, for her delicate little studies are not those made by tourist or "globe- trotter." It is scarcely a reason for not welcoming the brown booklet that its contents are chiefly reprints—some from our own columns, others from those of the Graphic—of her pleasant papers on Angevin country-life. Miss Price writes because she enjoyed her holiday, and does not pro- fess to solve any problems, or to give information as to how they manage these things in France ; but various points in her sketches cannot fail to catch the attention of any who understand French character, or have really known French people in their own homes,—French people, that is, who are exactly equivalent, in social position, habits of life, and general education, to those English among whom "our gentlefolk" habitually move. That there are these equivalents, is a matter of doubt to both French and English, as a rule. Englishmen still derive their ideas of French society from Parisian romances, travelling acquaintances, and exhibition crowds,— which is quite as wide and exhaustive a view as a Frenchman might obtain of our homes through the medium of " Ouida's " heroes, seaside loungers, and our excursion trains. When the language of either nation is spoken by the foreigner so fluently as to be no bar to free converse, an exception which compliments the individual at the cost of his nationality is usually made in his favour, and, be he French or English, his host will generally, in all good-will, give the stranger startling information as to the manners and customs of his own nation,—especially as regards the inexhaustible subjects of education, marriage, and "sport." Politics and religion, too —as far as temper serves on either side—may be depended upon to illustrate international and ecclesiastical ignorance surprising to either. But it is not easy to gain admission to a French home. The best French society is naturally self- defensive, and "An Englishman's house is his castle" is not completely equivalent to On ne donne.pas la clef de sa mason. It is not entirely because of his nationality, but also on account of his sex, that even a well-connected, French-speaking Englishman has little chance, in general, of entering a French home. On the other hand, just as Englishmen dominate tailordom for the moment, and in all but the minutest differ- ences, the best French, Germans, Austrians, Russians, and Italians as lay-figures might pass for English, the English- woman's education is greatly exercising the minds of well- bred French and Italian mothers. The writings foreign girls read are English, if they read at all; they try to play "le lawn-tennis ;" they are learning to walk and to swim ; and whereas in Paris it is not uncommon to meet girls educated l'Anglaise, the penetration of French womanhood by English ideas is everywhere remarkable. It is, of course, one of the usual English assertions that Frenchwomen are • May in Anjou: with other Sketches and Studies. By Eleanor O. Price. Edinburgh: David Douglas. 1899.

ignorant, and have no weight in their home-life,—in spite of history's verdict that among Frenchwomen have been found the most devoted as well as the most learned or the wittiest of their sex ; but what a Frenchwoman knows at all, she knows thoroughly. She is limited in her knowledge by the teachings of the Church—at least, till limitation is disregarded—but she is very quick of "apprehension." She is very supple, but very tenacious as regards her household management. Even in girlhood her liberty is really little restricted, except as regards the opposite sex, and that restraint is modified by such a recognition of cousinhood as is only possible in French home-life, where headship of a family has still almost feudal characteristics, and the circle of relations closes up round the parent-home on all possible occasions. Englishmen will rarely

be introduced to the vie du foyer. But Englishwomen may more easily attain it. It is in no very grave breach of con- fidence that Miss Price pens this pretty sketch of a little heiress in a French chdteau. It is her name-day. All day she has been receiving and repaying compliments and greetings, and, just when the people of the chciteau wish to drive off and dine with friends, up come the Sisters of the parish, with thirty schoolchildren, bouquet-laden and in procession.

They are received by the Marquise and her daughter in the library :—

"The sun poured in across the polished floor where all the little maidens were standing, shy and smiling, still grasping their bunches of pink roses and syringe; some of them quaint and old- fashioned in close white caps, and blue frocks down to their heels ; others, much less pretty, got up in hats like English children ; these belonged to the farmers or tradespeople of the village, and perhaps looked down on their peasant schoolfellows. The Sisters, in their grey habits and stiff white caps, their good simple faces beaming, were put several times by the good Marquise into two of the largest chairs in the room; but they were far too polite to stay there, and were up every minute, in spite of remonstrances. The servants brought in trays of wine and cakes and tarts, which Mes Scours,' after some persuasion, enjoyed quite as much as their scholars ; and the young girl, the cause of these festal doings, walked about waiting on them all, with pretty words and smiles for every child, half a child herself at seventeen,—a picture of young French beauty, with her small delicate features, creamy skin, dark velvet eyes, and ripple of jet-black curls, tied with a. red ribbon. Altogether, it was a sunny picture, and the Marquise herself was the centre of it, full of kind hospitality, without a shadow of impatience, though punctuality was her favourite virtue, and her horses were waiting." (pp. 14-15.) No one can be ruder than an official Frenchman rubbed the wrong way, except a travelling German, unprovoked, trying to swell himself up with the growing idea which the more vulgar Germans latterly have increasingly been obtruding on those of other nationalities, that Germany is "the first nation in Europe,"—a symptom which deserves notice. A well-bred Englishman can readily adapt himself to the little forma which are the visible sign of social knowledge in foreign circles. On the whole, as our manners at present go, we can stand com- parison with other nations, class for class. But the politeness of well-bred Frenchwomen makes all other courtesy appear clumsy and slow (as Mesdames Sarah Bernhardt and Jane Hading spoil our wits for the steady English play), and one form of French courtesy is almost unknown to LIB. An

Englishman likes his guest to enjoy himself, but he does not care whether or not his guest is himself, his best self. A Frenchwoman, or even a Frenchman, will often make great exertions in order to draw out a guest.

One of the most interesting portions of Miss Price's studies is that contained in two papers, "An Old French House," from

which again we quote. At the Restoration, a middle-aged man, here called the Marquis de Courcy, returned to France, married a pretty girl of eighteen, poor but tr'es-distinguee, and of great force of character. Not long afterwards, he bethought himself of the old French house. They went to see

it :—

"They found it inhabited by a colony of poor people who

had drifted in by degrees from the town and the country

round They had treated the place, inside and out, with marvellous respect ; even the carved panelling was uninjured, and the trees in the park had not been cut down for firewood. Still, one does not wonder much that the Marquis turned away in disgust, determined to sell the place ; it seemed impossible that he should ever live there. The scene is dramatic and picturesque in it way : a crowd of brown faces and rags peering through the stately doors, crouched about the great stone staircase ; the owner, a fanciful man at all times, walking out in a sort of sick horror on the broad steps in front, turning his back upon it all ; and his beautiful young wife,—well, she does not turn away like him, but looks up and down and round with the quick imagination of a girl, and sees what a noble house it is, though vilely used, and says., perhaps only to herself at first, Male non ! it shall not be sold. We will restore it, and live here.' And she lived there for sixty years." (pp. 55-56.)

That example is an equivalent to some of the influences exercised by our Englishwomen, and we cannot forbear to press home the point, as Miss Price's pages seem to awaken old associations, corroborating her statement, "Our observations on French character are as ignorant as they are sweeping," when we judge France "from Paris and from French novels."

And yet, in so speaking, what about Paris ? Is there not also there a society which is of the best,—one in which, though wearing it exquisitely, women scarcely speak of dress, where dinners of our tete-a-tete pairs are unknown, but where back- wards and forwards the ball of talk is thrown around and across the whole table between men and women who, it is true, dare not be dull, but by no means need be wicked? As a woman-friend, who only could know, asserted but the other day, one of the brightest of such a bright set is a young mother who, well known and "distinguished," is also extremely pretty. She, Parisian of all Parisians, goes out everywhere, and enjoys her life all the more because, not exceptionally, as her friend eagerly explains, she loves le bon .Dieu, succours His poor, is devoted to her husband. Returning late, in winter or summer, makes no difference to her ; each morning she rises at 6 o'clock ; herself calls her boy, prepares his breakfast, talks to him, sees that his books and themes are ready, and sends him out for the omnibus which passes a little way off at 7 o'clock. She goes back to rest then, for she is young and pretty, and must be bright when she appears for the second breakfast, not later than many a London dame priding herself upon being quite early. Nor, whenever possible—and this lady often makes it possible—when her boy returns at eventide, does she fail to hear the incidents of the day, nor to give help in the preparation for the morrow's work. Directly or indirectly, this boy is never left without his mother's care. We may think sometimes that all the talk about ma Mere is fashion or journalism, but it is a very practical sentiment in France.

Even in these days of bi-nationalism in London and in Paris, and in many a watering-place where the " smart " sets (of necessity bi-lingual) do mix a little, and when wherever Englishmen and Englishwomen go they meet English, it is necessary to remember that the English do not enter into foreign society on other terms than as they are received in their own. It is a very elementary truth, but it is one which is not sufficiently recognised, as Miss Price's little book by implication reminds a reader.

Two English sketches have, indeed, been included between these covers, but one would perhaps prefer to turn to those papers upon Old France, where the mystery of a century's struggle forward from the great Revolution has somehow fallen upon these pleasantly written pages. In Anjou, which Miss Price describes as a district

"Still one of the most aristocratic, the most simple, the most -old-fashioned provinces of France ; seeing with one's own eyes, hearing with one's own ears, talking to people whose great- grandfathers and great-grandmothers in these same houses saw the Revolution, and who have inherited their nameless charm ; in this country life, simple, happy, brilliant, and good, where crosses by the wayside are still heaped with flowers, and frogs croak contentedly, and one hears, what one had always imagined, that the silence des grenouilles was nothing but a ridiculous tradition,—the past mysteriously becomes present, somehow ; one is carried back a hundred years, and knows quite well what the cluiteaus of Anjou were like when that jacquerie burst over them."

Miss Price's book is not ambitious, either in substance or in aim, but her sketches are true, and, daintily drawn, are worth preserving and perusal.