Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/243

 miller sat in front of the capacious mouth of flames, and saw that the browning chicken was kept moist with grease. I told them the story of Alfred and the cakes, and the miller's wife cried, "She struck a king—a peasant just like myself!" "Dame," laughed the miller, "it doesn't make much difference, when it is a woman, whether she be queen or peasant!" And I thought the remark one that an English peasant would have been incapable of making. He would have been incapable of such a point of view.

The French peasant has not the charm of the Irish peasant—the women, above all, lack the lovely complexion and beautiful eyes of the Irish—and he has less of the grand air. He is much more the son of the soil and less of the gentleman. The writer, wishing to be true to life, could never make such enchanting "copy" out of him as Jane Barlow made of the Irish peasant in her delightful Idylls. There is too little poetry about him, and he is too evenly balanced and cool-headed to offer us many of the adorable surprises of humour. I have heard it said, by French persons who live in the country, that Zola comes nearer to truth and reality in his presentment of the peasant than George Sand in her exquisite pastorals, or M. René Bazin in such a tender and lovely story as La Terre qui Meurt. But Balzac himself did not weave us tales of romance and delicate feeling when he touched