The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-05-27
Home Life In France.

r Foreigners are apt TO take their impress
sions solely from Paris, which attracts
them by its brilliancy. Floating on the
surface, they see great deal ofgayety and
ioly and vice, and hastily conclude that
TINS Is French morality and French life.
put Paris is not France; nor, indeed, do
they see but very small part of Paris.
ihey have no access to French society OF
tne better class. One must disengage
himself from this first impression, if he
would Judge justly of the real character of
the French people.
Leaving as de these frivolities of gay
capital, and seeking the French in those
interiors which are generally closed to
foreigners, we find there a very strong
feeling of home, in both senses of that
Word. FIRST, the love of place, of fixed
habltation-what phrenoloeists call the
organ oflOcalty-is largely developed in
the French nature. They love their coun-
try, ind never leave it but with reluc-
lance. Hence they make poor colonists.
~ lille the English and Germans emigrate,
the french can hardly be torn from their
native soil. And not only the country,
Dut the province, the city or the little vii
lage, which gave them birth, is always
dear to them. Go into the country, and
you find families that have always lived in
the same place. Generation after gener-
alton has come and gone, and still they
cling to the old spot. Children, and chill
dren's children, are born and die on the
same farm, in the same moss-grOwn cot
tage, beneath the same thatched roof
where their fathers lived and died. This
single fact-the love of fixed abode
speaks much for the home feeling of the
French, especially to Americans, since it
appears in such strange contrast to the
migratory habits OF their countrymen.
With this love of the birthplace, the de-
sire to have little spot, however humble,
where one may become rooted to the soil,
i one OF the strongest passions of a
Frenchman. 1t exists among the poorest
peasantry. Even the common labOrerS,
who go TO Paris to find employment, al
ways have it at heart to return to their ma
tive village. The popullr songs which
the workmen sing at their tasks almost all
have reference to the cOuntry-tO the spot
they have left, and to which they hope
soI e day to return. This il their safe
guard amid the temptations of a great
city. Out of their little savings they send
back something to keep alive the old peO-
pie, 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 plot of ground, and
build little cottage, where they may pass
the rest of their days.
Every family which is little easy in its
circumstances, though it may spend half
the year in Paris, has somewhere in the
country, buried among the trees, retreat
which often has been in the fImily for
generations, and which is cherished with
rs much love and pride as any barOnial
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 manhood 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 is it half
so much so as that life of boarding-houses
and hotels Ia thing unknown in France,
but SO common in America); in which
there can be no such thing as domestic
privacy?
AS TO the home in its more elevated
meaning, not confined to the place. bat
including the feeling which unitcs family
in affection and in common interest, one
circumstance contributes greatly to pre-
serve and strengthen this among the
French. 1t is the social equal ty of men,
bers of the same family. To this no con-
trast can be greater than that of families
in A merica. A farmer in New England
has half dozen sons /; one remains on the
old homestead; one goes to a city and be-
comes rich merchant; another to col
lege, and enters a profession. Thus in
few years the relative position of different
members of the family is changed some
are rich, others poor; one may become
distinguished, while others are wholly un-
known.
But in France such changes are very
rare. Families remain not only in the
same place, but in the same station of
life. The farmers son tills the ground;
the mechanics son pursues the same trade.
All the avenues of life are so shut in, the
ranks are so closed up, that it is next 10
impossible for one to get out of his place.
The children remain like their fathers,
neither richer or poorer. No one is so
much above the rest that he looks down
on them with pride or contempt, or that
they look up to him with envy. The same
equality exists, to great extent, in the !
better classes. In commerce and in the
liberal professions, the son takes the
fathers place, and all keep along on |
about the same level. The paternal roof
is the rallying point for all and when
the children group themselves about the
aged parents, not divided by any great
disparity of condition, they are bound TO
gether by common interest as well as
mutual Authorization Home Sketches
in France" By Mrs. Henry ". Field.