Holidays in Eastern France | Page 2

HOLIDAYS IN EASTERN FRANCE.
CHAPTER I.
THE VALLEY OF THE MARNE.
How delicious to escape from the fever heat and turmoil of Paris during
the Exhibition to the green banks and sheltered ways of the gently
undulating Marne! With what delight we wake up in the morning to the
noise, if noise it can be called, of the mower's scythe, the rustle of
acacia leaves, and the notes of the stock-dove, looking back as upon a

nightmare to the horn of the tramway conductor, and the perpetual
grind of the stone-mason's saw. Yes! to quit Paris at a time of tropic
heat, and nestle down in some country resort is, indeed, like
exchanging Dante's lower circle for Paradise. The heat has followed us
here, but with a screen of luxuriant foliage ever between us and the
burning blue sky, and with a breeze rippling the leaves always, no one
need complain.
With the cocks and the hens, and the birds and the bees, we are all up
and stirring betimes; there are dozens of cool nooks and corners if we
like to spend the morning out of doors, and do not feel enterprising
enough to set out on an exploring expedition by diligence or rail. After
the midday meal everyone takes a siesta, as a matter of course, waking
up between four and five o'clock for a ramble; wherever we go we find
lovely prospects. Quiet little rivers and canals winding in between lofty
lines of poplars, undulating pastures and amber cornfields, picturesque
villages crowned by a church spire here and there, wide sweeps of
highly cultivated land interspersed with rich woods, vineyards,
orchards and gardens--all these make up the scenery familiarized to us
by some of the most characteristic of French painters.
Just such tranquil rural pictures have been portrayed over and over
again by Millet, Corot, Daubigny, and in this very simplicity often lies
their charm. No costume or grandiose outline is here as in Brittany, no
picturesque poverty, no poetic archaisms; all is rustic and pastoral, but
with the rusticity and pastoralness of every day.
We are in the midst of one of the wealthiest and best cultivated regions
of France moreover, and, when we penetrate below the surface, we find
that in manner and customs, as well as dress and outward appearance,
the peasant and agricultural population, generally, differ no little from
their remote country-people, the Bretons. In this famous cheese-making
country, the "Fromage de Brie" being the speciality of these rich dairy
farms, there is no superstition, hardly a trace of poverty, and little that
can be called poetic. The people are wealthy, laborious, and progressive.
The farmers' wives, however hard they may work at home, wear the
smartest of Parisian bonnets and gowns when paying visits. I was going

to say when at church, but nobody does go here!
It is a significant fact that in the fairly well to do educated district,
where newspapers are read by the poorest, where well-being is the rule,
poverty the exception, the church is empty on Sunday, and the priest's
authority is nil. The priests may preach against abstinence from church
in the pulpits, and may lecture their congregation in private, no effect is
thereby produced. Church-going has become out of date among the
manufacturers of Brie cheese. They amuse themselves on Sundays by
taking walks with their children, the pater-familias bathes in the river,
the ladies put on their gala dresses and pay visits, but they omit their
devotions.
Some of these tenant-farmers, many of the farms being hired on lease,
possessors of small farms hiring more land, are very rich, and one of
our neighbours whose wealth had been made by the manufacture of
Brie cheese lately gave his daughter a 100,000 francs, £40,000, as a
dowry. The wedding breakfast took place at the Grand Hotel, Paris, and
a hundred guests were invited to partake of a sumptuous collation. But
in spite of fine clothes and large dowries, farmers' wives and daughters
still attend to the dairies, and, when they cease to do so, doubtless
farming in Seine et Marne will no longer be the prosperous business we
find it. It is delightful to witness the wide-spread well-being of this
highly-farmed region.
"There is no poverty here," my host tells me, "and this is why life is so
pleasant."
True enough, wherever you go, you find well-dressed,
contented-looking people, no rags, no squalor, no pinched want.
Poverty is an accident of rare occurrence, and not a normal condition,
everyone being able to get plenty of work and good pay. The habitual
look of content written upon every face is very striking. It seems as if
in this land of Goshen, life were no burden, but matter of satisfaction
only, if not of thankfulness. Class distinction can hardly