Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/95

 artist's personal point of view; with your char-*woman, your hair-dresser; and the grocer's boy on his daily rounds, if you come in contact with him, you will find to be an intelligent and well-mannered youth. It is only when you get a little above this class that you light upon a trace of commercial vulgarity. The commis voyageur is something of a trial on the public road. He is not a pattern of manners, and he is apt to be aggressive in his desire to obtain the value of his money. Go still higher, among the wealthy bourgeois, and in no land of all the world will you find men who can comport themselves worse. In their attitude to women they seem to possess no standard of courtesy whatever. When a Frenchman of this class is polite to a woman, you may be in no doubt of his views in her regard, and you may be perfectly sure of her social and pecuniary value; for he is the least chivalrous, the least kind, the least disinterested of mortals, speaking generally, though here, as elsewhere, you will find noble exceptions. I hardly know an American or English woman who has travelled or stayed any time in France who has not had occasion to note how much less courteous to women Frenchmen are than their own men. Two young English ladies, finding themselves in some dilemma with regard to trains or luggage, had occasion to call on one of the chiefs of the Gare du Nord. This gentle