THE ANCIENT PROVINCE OF THE PEECHE 31 



the French people to the soil upon which they have 

 lived and loved is indeed proverbial. We in Amer- 

 ica have before us the fine illustration of the thrifty, 

 home-keeping habitants of the lower St. Lawrence. 

 This trait is strongly marked among the expatriated 

 French, but when we come to those actually bom 

 and bred under the lilies of Old France it assumes 

 the form of that passionate devotion to country whicJi 

 finds ready and tragic demonstration whenever the 

 call to arms is sounded. 



From time whereof the memory of man runneth 

 not to the contrary this adherence to things which 

 have been their own for generations has marked par- 

 ticularly the character of the farmers of provincial 

 France. The Abbe Fret, one of the chief historians 

 of The Perche, referring to the habits of the people 

 of this province before the revolution, said : 



"Each village family, free from all ambition, occu- 

 pied itself with its purely domestic affairs, and rare- 

 ly lost to view the church steeple of its own re- 

 spective parish. Each individual, content with the 

 lot apportioned by Providence, desired neither great- 

 ness nor riches and the village church-yard held 

 within its bosom the ashes of ten generations; for 

 it was an honor to share the last resting place with 

 one 's forefathers just as they had shared their lega- 

 cies. ' ' 



The Perche of Today.— After the Eevolution The 

 Perche, together with all the other ancient provinces 

 of France, was divided into departments. Thus we 

 find The Perche today comprises the departments of 

 Orne, Sarthe, Eure-et-Loir and Loir-et-Cher. Orne 



