The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1875-07-21
Home Life In France.

I Foreigners are apt to take their impress
sion solely from Paris, which attracts
surface they see a great deal of gayety
and folly and vice, and hastily conclude
that this is French morality and French
life. But Paris is not France nor indeed
do they see more than very small part
of Paris. They have no access to French
society of the better class One must
disengage himself from this first i'm
preston if he would judge justly of the
real character of the French people.
Leaving aside all these frivolities Of n
gay capital, and seeking the French in
those interiors which are generally closed
to foreigners, we find there is very
strong feeling of home, in both senses OF
the word. First, the love of place. of
fixed habitation-what the phrenologists
call the organ of locality-is largely de-
veloped in the French nature. They love
their country and never leave il but with
reluctance. Hence they make poor
colonists. While the English and Ger
mans emigrate, the French can hardly
be torn from their native s)il. And not
only the country, but the province, the
city or the little village which gave them
birth is always dear 10 them. Go into
the country and you will ind families that
have lived and died in the same place
Generation after generation has come
and gone; and still they cling 10 the old
spot. Children and childrens children
are born and die on the same farm, in
the same mOss-grown cottage, under the
same matched roof where their fathers
lived and died. The single fact-the love
of a ixe | abode-speaks much of the
home-feeling of the French, especially to
since it appears in such
strange contrast to the migratory habits
of their countrymen.
With this love of birthplace, the desire
to have little spot, however humble,
where one may become rooted TO the soil,
is one of the strongest passions of II
Frenchman. 1t exists among the poorest
pleasantly. Even .he common laborers,
who go to Paris to find employment al !
ways have it at heart to return TO their
native village. The popular songs which |
the workmen sing at their work almost
all have reference to the country--to the |
spot they have left and to which they |
hope to return. This is their safeguard |
among the temptations of a great city.
Out of their little savings they send back |
to keep alive the old people, /
Or to help their younger brothers. And
the height of their ambition is, by many |
years of hard labor, to save enough to
return and buy a plot of ground and
ruild little cottage where they may pass
the rest of their days.
Every family that is little easy in its
though it may spend half
the year in Paris, has somewhere in the ,
buried among the trees, re-
treat which has often been in the family |
for generations, and which is cherished
with as much love and pride as any ba.
ronial castle. Only extreme necessity
can induce them to part with it. 1t is the
first spot which the children learn to love,
and which remains equally dear in man
hood and old age. True, the same families
when they come up TO Paris TO spend the
winter, live in apartments, and this has
been thought unfavorable to domestic
life. But it is not half SO much az that |
ife of boarding houses and hotels Ca thing |
unknown in France, but 50 common in I
America in which there can be no such !
hing as domestic privacy.
As to the home in its more elevated |
not confinement to place, but
including the feeling which unites a fam
ly in affection and in a common interest,
me circumstance contributes greatly to
preserve and strengthen this among the
French. 1t is the social equality Of
members of the same family. TO this no
contrast can be greater than that of fam
lies in America. A farmer in New
England has a half dozen sons /; one re-
Mains on the old homestead; one goes to
city and becomes rich merchant. Thus
n few years the relative position Of diff
erent members of the family is changed
ONE are rich, others are poor one may
become distinguished, while others are
Wholly unknown.
But in France such changes are very
are. Families remain not only in the
anne place, but in the same station of life.
The farmers son tills the ground the
Mechanics son pursues the same trade.
All avenues Of life are shut in the
anks so closed up, that it is next to inn
possible for one to get out of his place.
The children remain like their fathers,
neither richer nor poorer. No one Is so
much above the rest that he looks down
lpon them with pride or contempt, nor
hat they look up 10 him with envy. The
.quality exists to a great extent, in the
better classes In commerce and in the
LIBERAL professions, the son takes the
athers place, and all keep along on
bout the same level The pa:ernal roof
) the replyiug-point for all and when
he children group themselves about the
ged parents, not divided by any dispari-
y of condition, they are bound together
" common interest, rs well as by mu-
ual Affection From Home Sketches in
france, by Mrs. Henry NJ. Field.