42 The Popular Literature of France. [^JuLY^ 



It will be inquired how these pi-oductions of human thought are distri- 

 buted ; still bewildered by those who three times a-year talk pathetically 

 of the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge, we naturally 

 expected to see those beneficent works, whose pure morality secures for 

 their authors medals and crowns of virtue, penetrate into the inmost re- 

 cesses of the remotest hamlet of the kingdom ! Alas, we are thunderstruck 

 on seeing within how small a circle is circumscribed the influence of those 

 works, which were intended to regulate the heart and mind of all the tax- 

 payers of the eighty-seven departments. The common people, and more 

 particularly those residing in the country, are in general slaves to an 

 instinct of routine, which is carried to a point of invincible obstinacy. 

 They are doggedly attached to what is old, and reject without discrimi- 

 nation, without even examination, every thing which wears the least 

 appearance of innovation. To read any other book than that which 

 from their infancy they have seen tossing about in the dust among 

 the consecrated palm-branches and rusty firelocks, would be an achieve- 

 ment far eclipsing those of Cook, ^Magellan, or Columbus. So in other 

 provinces, variable as is the taste in dress in France, the peasants' hair has 

 hardly yet abandoned the costume of the good old days of Louis XIV. 

 This will enable us to judge what progress can have been made by the 

 multitude in an art, the first effect of v^hich is to cause a reaction in 

 domestic life, by the improvements which it reveals and teaches us to 

 introduce there. Philanthropic societies have thought to remedy these 

 inconveniences, by voting books calculated by their form and price for 

 popular circulation. These books had two great faults. They were 

 rational, and were distributed gratis. Now the honourable class of 

 readers of which we are now treating, will almost always say — " I 

 choose to be deceived," as the wife of Iganarelle said — " I choose to be 

 beaten." Whether the year be good or bad, it must always have its 

 quota of trifles and prophecies, which it would look for in vain in the 

 works so lavishly distributed, with a zeal laudable indeed, but quite 

 inexperienced. Hence, during the administration of ]M. Decazes, alma- 

 nacks, published by government at 3^d., and which, in order to secure 

 the circulation, were even delivered to the public at 2id., were scouted 

 with unanimity by the catechumens of the Mesxager Boiteux. The 

 Societe Elementairc failed in a similar manner in 1827. They could not 

 persuade any one to take their almanacks. The common multitude 

 look with distrust on these publications, simply because they are given 

 away ; they are filled wath some vague idea, that the real spring of this 

 bounty must be some dangerous spirit of proselytism. It is a repetition 

 of the story of the fellahs of Central Africa, who, not conceiving the 

 possibility of the mere love of science inducing men to expose them- 

 selves to the dangers of long voyages, saw in the emulators of Mungo 

 Park, Laing, and Clapperton, only magicians or treasure-hunters. The 

 French peasant, in fact, only values what he has paid for ; and in 

 this respect they imitate the politician, who willingly makes a saci'ifice 

 to subscribe to works which interest him, and does not even deign to 

 cast his eyes on those with which an obsequious perseverance is con- 

 tinually loading his table gratuitously. In England this mistrust would 

 be in some degree justified by certain precedents, which prove that 

 almanacks were often employed as the medium for opposing or propa- 

 gating such principles as appeared to be hostile or favourable to the 

 existing powers James I., for instance, paid marked attention to these 



