AN OCTOBER ABROAD 187 



At Dieppe I first saw the wooden shoe, and heard 

 its dry, senseless clatter upon the pavement. How 

 suggestive of the cramped and inflexible conditions 

 with which human nature has borne so long in these 

 lands ! 



A small paved square near the wharf was the 

 scene of an early market, and afforded my first 

 glimpse of the neatness and good taste that char- 

 acterize nearly everything in !France. Twenty or 

 thirty peasant women, coarse and masculine, but 

 very tidy, with their snow-white caps and short 

 petticoats, and perhaps half as many men, were 

 chattering and chaffering over little heaps of fresh 

 country produce. The onions and potatoes and 

 cauliflowers, etc., were prettily arranged on the 

 clean pavement, or on white linen cloths, and the 

 scene was altogether animated and agreeable. 



La belle France is the woman's country clearly, 

 and it seems a mistake or an anomaly that woman 

 is not at the top and leading in all departments, 

 compelling the other sex to play second fiddle, as 

 she so frequently has done for a brief time in iso- 

 lated cases in the past; not that the man is effemi- 

 nate, but that the woman seems so nearly his match 

 and equal, and even so often proves his superior. 

 In no other nation, during times of popular excite- 

 ment and insurrection or revolution, do women 

 emerge so conspicuously, often in the front ranks, 

 the most furious and ungovernable of any. I think 

 even a female conscription might be advisable in the 

 present condition of Erance, if I may judge of her 



