VIII AND OTHER COUNTRIES 159 



and thereby sought to make a name for himself in his 

 county, in France it was the peasant who competed in 

 the market. In France the poor man hoarded and bought 

 land. To him the land was everything, and had been 

 from time immemorial. Hence that strong attachment 

 to his home, which is a peculiarity of the Celtic character, 

 was intensified, an attachment which certainly is not to 

 be found in England to the same extent. Once more, 

 France did not share to the same extent that commercial 

 spirit which in England so deeply affected her rural 

 economy. And while in England 'the labour of the 

 town supported the luxury of the county, in France it 

 was the labour of the county which supported the luxury 

 of the noble at the court '. The development of industry in 

 England was also accompanied by a remarkable increase 

 in population, and it was the increase of population which, 

 by increasing the demand for food, was one of the reasons 

 for consolidation of farms and therefore of estates. In 

 France, on the contrary, population was stationary, if it 

 did not decrease. 



Finally, the idea that the life of a French proprietor is 

 a very happy one is an idle dream. Mr. Prothero, who 

 knows France well, says 'that he is worse housed and 

 worse fed than the English labourer. His cottage is 

 generally a single room with a mud floor, in which he and 

 his family and his live stock live, eat, sleep, and die ... 

 From morning till night his toil is excessive and prolonged ; 

 female labour is the rule; children are continuously em- 

 ployed, while his little property is often mortgaged. 1 

 A. Young talks of the magic of property ; but there is 

 such a thing as the demon of property. The French 



1 Prothero, Pioneers, p. 135 ; J. Howard, M.P., Continental Farming 

 and Peasantry ; Lady Verney, How Peasant Proprietors live in France 

 and other Countries. 



