COUNTRY LIFE IN FRANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17279, 21 September 1916, Page 8

COUNTRY LIFE IN FRANCE.

♦ • RETRENCHMENT ON THE LAND. ’ —— i " WOMEN’S SELF-DENIAL. r So many Frenchwomen who, in the ordinary course of events, would be entertaining house parties or doing a cure somewher are now living quietly in their country houses under quite peculiar circumstances, writes the Paris correspondent of "The Times.”- Their men, tho younger ones, anyway, are at the front, and it falls to their lot to look after the estates. The talent vouchsafed to most Frenchwomen for good management stands them in good stead at preent,' and, except for the shortness of labour and an exceptionally wet August, the farm work has gone on as usual. Wherever there are troops in the neighbourhood the officers send men to help on tho farms, and in more than one. case I have known people who have had tho privilege of using the orderlies of officer friends for gardening, thus ensuring vegetables for all the year round. In other cases where troops have not been forthcoming, women land owners have asked for batches of German prisoners to work on their farms, and under the guardianship of French soldiers they work very well, glad, in many instances’ to be at peaceful labour safe from the:, shells and shrapnel. V It is notable that wherever thejprae-. tical Brenchwoman has to manage her land herself she always has the fiecessary, essential things looked after at; the expense of anything ornamental,' and where she is obliged to economise strictly sho allows no false pride to interfere with her retrenchment. We read of those old aristocrats who will-go on living in the home of their forefathers' when nothing is left them but the walls mouldy furniture, and neglected gardens;, but, in reality, the French mind inclines to a much more modern point of view, and when the family fortunes decline they realise on their remaining j possessions and retire into smaller and * more comfortable quarters. Even when they do live on in their country houses they manage in such a practical way that they do not suffer discomfort, although they have no luxury, for the French aristocrat or provincial of tho -' upper middle class is capable of tbq most amassing self-denial in the little ! things of everyday life. . -

OLD-FASHIONED HOSPITALITY. '■ i Over all they do there is a bare elq- i pnee which suggests birth and breed-: and a certain narrowness of out-, look which makes the stranger within : the gates always a stranger. The ■ threadbare hospitality which naturally ' and simply offers the half of its poor I ail to any passing stranger in equiva- • lent cases m England, and still more in I Scotland and Ireland, is not known in! r ranee, for ceremony is attached to'j the simplest form of entertaiiing in B reach country houses of this kind, and i when poverty is the ruling power it is not exposed to the common gaze This 1 does not mean that there is no doling out of charity; on the contrary, the i landed proprietor in- Franco dispenses 1 many benefits. among his teuanis and ' the poor of his village. In many cases , he is the maire of the place aid the' arbiter of all disputes. He addresses the village maidens in the second person singular, and they replv in the third; he sits among the village elders in a spirit of jocose jfriedliness which never approaches familiarity. No. man knows better than the old type 0 f French nobleman how to do this/’ and no woman knows better than the oldfashioned type of French aristocrat how to deal With the old typ.’ 0 f French' peasant. }■■ ■ Fot the modern spirit of democracy, \ however, they have a natural spirit of antagonism, and since th» war began they have taken care to inderline the advantages of the old regime arid the valour of the old Frencl blood from, which have sprung some'of France’s' finest soldiers. Their lojalty to their' church is also emphasised,- and the fine qualities of the soldier-priests, as well as the staying powers ci the village cures under severe tests of personal courage, have helped them in their support of Catholic France. ■

Where the landed proprhtors are well j off and the situation of tin great Jiouse allows of it, hospitals and-convalescenb homes have been arranged and almost everywhere the “chateau’* has its ouvroir; the Ducbesse d’TTzes, the ! Duchesse de Rohan, the Comtesse de' Bearn, the Marquise de-'Ganay are. among those who have dole good work in this way, and less well-inowu women can be named by the score wno have given wisely and generously to the great task of nursing the French sol-: diers and suplpying them with neces- ; saries and comforts when they are in! the trenches. 1 l. ■ , Where there are young pjople in the' family the life of tho hotse itself is not allowed to fall into mcuotony, for the claims of the children "in France , are always recognised as .Taramount-1 Thus the family life goes or much the same within the strict privioy of the ! home. The little girls go on'with their' • music and dancing, the little boys with, their studies and sports, the naids keep the linen chests in the sane perfect order, and the English “ Miss ” does all the odd jobs. Only the superfluous things of life have been put cbwn, and when the tim9 comes to take them up; again there will be no confusion. ! PROPERTIES DESTROYED. 1

A large number of beautiful estates and small properties have been utterly destroyed in the north, and maay painful stories are told by those to whom they one belonged. I heard one woman say the other day that every family souvenir had gone; family .papers, family portraits, a thousand relies of a prosperous past. They have all gone! And I heard another, whose parental mansion, one of those old houses which began small and grew large with the growing prosperity of succeeding generations, had been entirely destroyed with the groat factories which bad built 1 up the family wealth. To know that such days can never come again is depressing, and only less sad than tho tales we hear of the poor villagers whose every means of subsistence has gone with the destruction 'of < their little house and bit of land. Life is flying on a very broken wing for such as these, and war is a very real proh-