What was the
poor girl's astonishment to find that in Paris everybody was so far
accomplished as to be able to read and write? Her surprise would have
been greater still, had she witnessed the acquirements of these little
Couilly girls, many of them, like herself, daughters of small peasant
farmers.
It must be mentioned, for the satisfaction of those who regard the
progress of education with some concern, that the elegant bonnets and
dresses I speak of are laid aside on week days, and that nowhere in
France do people work harder than here. But when not at work they like
to wear good clothes and read the newspapers as well as their
neighbours. Take our laundress, for instance, an admirable young woman,
who gets up clothes to perfection, and who on Sunday exchanges her
cotton gown and apron for the smartest of Parisian costumes. The amount
of underclothes these countrywomen possess is sometimes enormous, and
they pride themselves upon the largest possible quantity, a great part
of which is of course laid by. They count their garments not by dozens
but by scores, and can thus afford to wait for the quarterly
washing-day, as they often do. It must be also mentioned that
cleanliness is uniformly found throughout these flourishing villages,
and, in most, hot and cold public baths.
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