In these rich and prosperous provinces, the people (revolutionary and
excitable as their ancestors were) certainly appear happy and contented;
the most uneducated of them are quick-witted and ready in reply, they
are not boorish or sullen, they have more readiness--at least in
manner--than the germanic races, and are, as a rule, full of gaiety and
humour. These people do not want war, they hate the conscription which
takes away the flower of the flock; they regard with anything but
pleasure the rather dictatorial '_Moniteur_' that comes to them by post
sometimes, whether they ask for it or not, and would much rather be
'let alone.'[54]
Such is a picture of Lower Normandy, the land of plenty where we wander
with so much pleasure in the summer months, putting up at wayside inns
(where the hostess makes her 'note' on a slate and finds it hard work to
make the amount come to more than five francs, for the night, for board
and lodging for 'monsieur') and at farmhouses sometimes; chatting with
the people in their rather troublesome patois, and making excursions
with the local antiquary or cure, to some spot celebrated in history.
They are pleasant days, when, if we will put up with a few
inconveniences, and live principally out of doors, we may see and hear
much that a railway traveller misses altogether. We shall not admire the
system of farming, as a rule (each farmer holding only a few acres); and
we shall find some of the cottages of the labourers very primitive,
badly built, and unhealthy, although generally neat; we shall notice
that the people are cruel, and careless of the sufferings of animals,
and that no farm servant knows how to groom a horse.
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