We started at seven o'clock in the morning, and lovely indeed looked the
wide landscape in the tender light--valley, and winding river, and
wooded ridge being soon exchanged for wide open spaces covered with corn
and autumn crops. Farming here is carried on extensively, some of these
rich farms numbering several hundred acres. The farm-house and
buildings, surrounded with a high stone wall, are few and far between,
and the separate crops cover much larger tracts than here. It was
market-day at Coulommiers, and we passed by many farmers and farmeresses
jogging to market, the latter with their fruit and vegetables, eggs and
butter, in comfortable covered carts.
Going to market in France means, indeed, what it did with us a hundred
years ago; yet the farmers and farmers' wives looked the picture of
prosperity. In some cases, fashion had so far got the better of
tradition, that the reins were handled by a smart-looking lady in hat
and feathers and fashionable dress, but for the most part by
toil-embrowned homely women, with a coloured handkerchief twisted round
their heads and no pretention to gentility. The men, one and all, wore
blue blouses, and were evidently accustomed to hard work, but for all
that it was easy to see that they were possessed both of means and
intelligence.
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