Photograph by H. C. Ellis THE ORNATE INTERIOR OF A GREAT PARIS DEPARTMENT STORE: IN COMMERCE, AS IN EVERY OTHER ACTIVITY OF LIFE, THE FRENCH- The floral decorations seen here agree with the poetical name of this particular store, "Au Printemps" (In the Springtime) A TRELLIS BUILT BY NAPOLEON I FOR HIS EMPRESS, MARIE LOUISE: COMPIEGNE Like the Babylonian monarch who erected the famous Hanging Gardens to delight the eye of his princess, who amid the flat plains of Mesopotamia pined for her mountain home, so the first Bonaparte built this beautiful arbor to remind his homesick Austrian princess of her favorite trellis at Schonbrunn. league concerning the troubles or the happiness about his hearthstone or the relationships existing behind the closed doors of his family residence. What the Frenchman lacks, however, in talkativeness about his personal affairs he more than compensates for in his startling loquacity on things of a general nature; for in France intelligence is universal. This does not mean that every Frenchman is well educated; it does not mean that he is widely traveled, but it does mean that mentally he is generally on tiptoes. As far as city and town life is concerned, it has been truly observed that "the sensation which France produces on the impressionable foreigner is, first of all, that of mental exhilaration." And, be it remembered, this intellectual enthusiasm must not be classified as loose thinking. The French are astonishingly precise. Their intellectual precision is such that I am afraid it discourages their imagination. I cannot imagine a Parisian of the cultivated class indulging before his fireplace in those loose, wandering dreams in which so many Americans delight. INTELLECTUAL CANDOR A NATIONAL TRAIT Intimately connected with this attitude. is the Frenchman's intellectual candor. Long accused by the Americans and the British of lacking this very quality simply because he does not make a public dissection of his personal inner life, he possesses, I believe, far greater intellectual frankness than either of his two allies, when dealing with the deeper problems of existence. If he is an atheist, he is frankly one; if he is a believer in the necessity of some supposedly immoral tendency in man A WARD FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR: FRANCE ENDEAVORS TO SAVE EVERY BABY WITHIN ITS BORDERS The dowry custom in France has its good points, for it prevents hasty and povertyridden marriages; on the other hand, it is bad, for it deters marriage in a land where children are sorely needed and causes the French family to be small, so that the one or two children, when grown, may possess the proper financial attractions for marriage. kind, he generally says so frankly; if the Trinity is beyond his conception, he does not camouflage his skepticism; unlike many Americans, he accepts few theories on faith, and what he cannot understand or accept he candidly rejects. In the Frenchman, then, we find an unusual love of philosophy and a certain worship of reason which are rather dis couraging to us more loosely thinking, more sentimental, Americans. Perhaps our tendency is to take too many ideas, facts, and things for granted; but the Frenchman, even of the lower middle classes, is always searching for a reason, an explanation, a more thorough understanding of this and that. If at the table of my French hostess A PERIPATETIC PURVEYOR OF FLYPAPER He sells it rolled, so that the purchaser will not feel stuck up by his purchase I inquired as to the origin of some word or the theory of some science, voila! an animated discussion immediately, a sifting of opinions, a peeping into dictionaries and encyclopedias, an astonishing volley of facts, and when the subject is dropped it is because that subject has been perforated, riddled, heartlessly dismembered. But if it has passed through the dissecting-room its anatomy has forever been made clear to me. In other words, vague, sentimental reflections seem rather distasteful to the twentieth century Frenchman, and his bravery in acknowledging and facing facts might well be imitated to some degree by our own countrymen. IN THE FRENCH SCHOOLS Your Frenchman, from the boy in the lycée to the professor in the university, is sure that complex life can be reduced to a comprehensible system; his tenacity in developing and defending a logical system worked out from a given definition is wholly admirable. Indeed, to one who has seen the lackadaisical air of the average American student toward the class-room discussion of some purely abstract idea, this French zeal in defending an intellectual point or theory, this seizing upon an abstraction as a sort of object of faith to be debated upon with enthusiasm, to be battled over if need be, comes as a pleasing shock. If, therefore, any American still clings to the old-time opinion that the French are a frivolous people he should immediately revise his theory. They are startlingly serious and their very seriousness has led throughout their history to what has been called their tragic antagonism of conviction. Such intellectual alertness would not allow any people to remain contentedly unanimous, but on the other hand has led to internal hatreds among the French so keen, so heated, that only a common intense patriotism has preserved safety. GRAPE GATHERERS AT EPERNAY, CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT Photograph by L. Boulanger Once the pride of France and the delight of connoisseurs of rare vintages, the fields of Champagne have been blasted by high explosive shells, sprayed with the steel of bursting shrapnel, and poisoned with the fumes of deadly gases. But French thrift will soon restore them, and smiling vineyards will again clothe these hills, concealing forever the scars of war. |