'It is true,' said Beaumont, 'that during the last twenty years American diplomacy has not been such as to inspire affection or respect But you must recollect that during all that time America has been governed by the South.'
'It is true,' I said, 'that the presidents have generally been Southerns, but I am not aware that the North has ever disavowed their treatment of us. This is certain, that throughout the Union, insolence to England has been an American statesman's road to popularity.'
_Monday., August _19.--We walked in the afternoon over the commons overlooking the sea, and among the shady lanes of this well-wooded country.
We came on a group of about twelve or thirteen reapers taking their evening meal of enormous loaves of brown bread, basins of butter, and kegs of cider.
M. Roussell, the farmer in whose service they were, was sitting among them. He was an old friend and constituent of Tocqueville, and for thirty years was Maire of Tocqueville. He has recently resigned. He rose and walked with us to his house.
'I was required,' he said, 'to support the prefect's candidate for the _Conseil général_. No such proposition was ever made to me before. I could not submit to it. The prefect has been unusually busy of late. The schoolmaster has been required to send in a list of the peasants whose children, on the plea of poverty, receive gratuitous education. The children of those who do not vote with the prefect are to have it no longer.'
'Three francs and half a day,' he said, 'during the harvest, with food--which includes cider. In ordinary times one franc a day with food, or a franc and a half without food.'
'It seems then,' I said, 'that you can feed a man for half a franc a day?'
'He can feed himself,' said M. Roussell, 'for that, but I cannot, or for double that money.'
The day labourer is generally hired only for one day. A new bargain is made every day.
The house was not uncomfortable, but very untidy. There are no ricks, everything is stored in large barns, where it is safe from weather, but terribly exposed to vermin.
A bright-complexioned servant-girl was in the kitchen preparing an enormous bowl of soup, of which bread, potatoes, and onions were the chief solid ingredients.