Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/250

 like the callous Spaniards and the Italians; and even in France the condition of animals is considerably ameliorated, though horses and donkeys are still often maltreated, and geese are killed in the cruelest fashion, their prolonged agonies, in peasant esteem, lending flavour to the cooked flesh.

What should, however, be a source of perennial admiration is the extraordinary absence in this class of anything approaching snobbishness. The eternal simplicity and unpretentiousness of the race are my constant wonder and delight. You will see a man in blue blouse, his wife in spotless cap and coloured kerchief, the man in appearance and fashion of speech and manners a gentleman, the woman educated, with her brevet supérieur, not destitute of music or art, working and living like peasants because they are working their own land, and receiving on lines of perfect equality their humbler neighbours, without any thought of giving themselves the vulgar airs so common in my own land and in England. When they take their well-earned holiday at the seaside or among mountain waters, you will rarely find them seeking to pass for other than they are, or talking loudly of their advantages of fortune or station. Their natural dignity is such that they are content to abide by it and be judged accordingly. This class of the French race may be described as the least vulgar, the