Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/213

 us the French mother as charmed to discover that her son has started romantic relations with the wife of a wealthy friend. She is convinced that he must have a mistress, and her only hope is that he shall choose one who will not ruin him in purse or in health. Of his heart and happiness in these matters she seems to care not a pin, possibly because of the talent for cynicism possessed by the French, which declines to recognise heart outside the family. If every poison has its antidote, so has every quality its drawback. This beautiful maternal devotion we so admire is practised to the detriment of all outsiders. The French mother would make a holocaust of all humanity on the altar of her offspring's advancement and interest. She will gladly toil for him or for her, save francs and pence for either, deprive herself of what she most loves, accomplish for her child every virtue in the world but that of justice or generosity toward outsiders. For the French ménagère, the outsider is the enemy. Indeed, for all the French family the outsider is a reptile to be crushed. Let a wealthy Frenchwoman take a strong fancy to an outsider, and the hostility awakened in the breast of every member against this inoffensive outsider will be found to be a sentiment to which only Balzac could do justice. Sons and daughters, cousins, nephews, and nieces, will combine to slight or insult the reprobate.