flock to read. In a little paper which lies before us, the first article
is entitled '_Le miroir du diable_;' then follows a long account of a
poisoning case in Paris, and some songs from a _café chantant_,
interspersed with illustrations of the broadest kind. But let us not be
too critical; we have seen many things in France which would startle
Englishmen, but nothing, we venture to say, more harmful in its
tendency, than the weekly broad-sheet of crime which is spread out over
our own land (to the number, the proprietors boast, of at least a
hundred thousand[53]), wherein John and Jane, who can only sign their
names with a cross, read in hideous cartoons, suggestions of cruelty and
crime more revolting than any the schoolmaster could have taught them.

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 curé, to some spot celebrated in history.