Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/47

 natural breeding. Among the mountains they are of rougher build and manners; but in the plains of Berry, in the flat, green department of the Loiret, where the landscape looks like a little bit of Holland on the edge of the still and sedgy Loire where it ceases to be navigable, the very labourers more resemble well-to-do and well-bred farmers than the class to which they belong. Their breeding and neatness, if you come upon them in the wild solitude of the fields, are in keeping with the gracious silence of shepherd life, instead of being a blot upon it, and their civilised speech does not jar upon the banks of grey, flowing water, or among the warm, sunlit meadows.

Farther south-west the manners are less commendable. Mistrust of the foreigner is more visible; and if you ask your way, you risk falling upon the practical joker, who deliberately sends you wrong out of gaiety of heart. Landscape is decided by region, and local character is decided by religion. Volubility and Catholicism seem to go hand in hand; rigidity and sternness with Protestantism. La Rochelle and Rochefort are Protestant towns on the coast; the Cévennes territory is Protestant, also the towns of Nîmes and Montpellier in Provence. Speaking broadly, I should say the French Protestants are more intelligent, the Catholics brighter; the Protestants deeper in brains and