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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
On one especial visit during September, not even these acres of closely-serried forest could induce more
than a suggestion of shadow and coolness. Although screened from view the sun was there. Throughout a
vast region - half a province of woodland - folks breathed the hot air of the Soudan. The tropic
temperature admitted of no exercise during the day, but after four o'clock tea we broke up into parties -
drove, rode, strolled, called upon homelier neighbours, visited quaint old churches hidden in the trees or
forest nooks, the solitude only broken by pattering of deer and rabbits, or nut-cracking squirrel aloft.
Here and there we would come upon huts of charcoal-burner and wood-cutter, gamekeepers and
foresters, too, had their scattered lodges; such signs of human habitation being few and far between.
We are here in the remnant of the great Celtic forest of Der. The straggling village of Soulaines is one
long street, a little stream running behind the picturesque, timbered houses, many of these have outer
wooden staircases leading to grange or storehouse. Church and presbytery, convent and Mairie were
conspicuous.
In the opposite direction, another church rose above the horizon, the centre of what in France is called
not a village but a hamlet. Bare as a barn seen from far and near showed this little church, and we often
walked thither for the sake of its picturesque surroundings. The portal of the quaint old building is a mass
of ancient sculpture, close round it being grouped a few mud-built, timbered, one-storeyed dwellings all
of a pattern.
Even in France are to be found day labourers, only the very poorest, however, being without a cottage,
plot of ground, a cow and of poultry their own. Many of their interiors are far neater and cleaner than
those of the farm-houses, their occupants not being so tied to the soil from morning to night, not, in fact,
incited to Herculean labours by the spur of larger possession. We visited one of the poorest villages
hereabouts, of not quite a hundred souls, but of course, provided with church, school and Mairie. Many a
group of potato diggers we saw in the exquisite twilight, suggestive of Millet, many a landscape recalling
other masters. This handful of woodlanders - for the village is surrounded by forests - is perhaps as poor
as any rural population to be found throughout France. Yet here surprises await us. Some of the better off
hire a little land, keep cows, rear poultry, most likely in time to become owners of a plot. They are paid
for harvest work in kind, several we talked to having earned enough corn for the winter's consumption -
as they put it - our winter's bread. They are a fine, sunburnt, well-formed race and seem cheerful enough.
In one of the poorest houses, a huge pipkin on the fire emitted savoury steam, and rows of small cheeses
garnished the shelves. Good oak bedsteads, linen presses and old-fashioned clocks were general. Every
mantel-piece had its framed photograph and ornamental crockery. New milk was always freely offered
us.
Within the precincts of this hamlet we find ourselves in a bluish-green land of mingled wood and water;
above the reedy marsh, haunt of wild fowl, willows grew thick; here and there the water flowed freely,
its surface broken by the plash of carp and trout. At this season all hands hereabouts were busy with
threshing out the newly garnered corn and getting in potatoes. The crops are very varied, wheat, barley,
lucerne, beetroot, buckwheat, colza, potatoes; we see a little of everything. Artificial manures are not
much used, nor agricultural machinery to a great extent, except by large farmers, but the land is clean and
in a high state of cultivation. Peasant property is the rule; labouring for hire, the condition of
non-possession, very rare. And whether the times are good or evil, land dirt cheap or dear, the year's
savings go to the purchase of a field or two and, as a necessary consequence, to the consolidation of the
Republic and the maintenance of Parliamentary institutions.
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